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Framing Britney Spears (Sky/NOW TV)

Do you want to watch a chirpy, charming, charismatic young woman being harassed and bullied on the street, online and on television until she is eventually reduced to a broken, sobbing mess with a haunted look in her eyes and serious mental-health issues?

Sounds like fun, right? Because, as this disturbing documentary reminds us, that’s what we all did to Britney Spears (left) in the early 2000s. This was a time when it was considered normal to speculate on TV about whether Britney had slept with her boyfriend – when a TV interviewer felt it was fine to ask her if she was a virgin.

Framing Britney Spears looks at the career of the woman who was the biggest pop star on the planet and at the controversial ‘conservatorship’ she has been under since 2008, after she was admitted to a psychiatric facility by her father.

The film caused a storm when it was released in the US this month, with stars taking to social media to express their support for the singer, and Miley Cyrus telling the Super Bowl audience: ‘We love Britney.’

Is Britney now effectively a prisoner who sends coded pleas for help to supporters through Instagram? That’s what some believe, and this film doesn’t prove otherwise.