THE STORY – A rising pop star navigates the complexities of fame and industry pressure while preparing for her arena tour debut.
THE CAST – Charli XCX, Rosanna Arquette, Kate Berlant, Jamie Demetriou, Hailey Gates & Alexander Skarsgård
THE TEAM – Aidan Zamiri (Director/Writer) & Bertie Brandes (Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 103 Minutes
We may be in the middle of a cold, cold winter, but some of us are still living in Brat Summer. The monumentally fun summer of 2024 feels like one of the most pivotal times for pop music in recent history, and at the center of it all was Charli XCX’s hyperpop masterpiece of an album, “Brat.” The musician’s dominance over pop culture seemed inescapable, co-headlining the Sweat Tour with Troye Sivan in the fall of 2024 before immediately jumping into her 36-show solo arena Brat Tour. And somehow, she managed to star in a film that was shot in the middle of the Brat Tour. This movie, “The Moment,” isn’t perhaps the expected performance film capturing her tour set, nor is it a traditional behind-the-scenes documentary. Instead, writer-director Aidan Zamiri (who has directed some of her music videos) and co-writer Bertie Brandes have crafted a mockumentary that fictionalizes the cultural cyclone the musician found herself at the center of during the Brat era. It’s a stressful, at times angry movie about the difficulties of artistic collaboration and a satire of the modern celebrity landscape. Fans of the pop star will absolutely be delighted. Still, anyone without a familiarity with Charli XCX, “Brat,” or the concept of being a 365 party girl will likely struggle to be engaged.
Charli XCX plays Charli XCX. Well, sorta kinda. She plays a fictionalized version of herself as she prepares for the start of the Brat Tour. As the film opens, the first show is three weeks away, and she struggles to focus on rehearsals, finding herself pulled in several different directions by her team, her record label, and even her friends. Making matters worse is the arrival of Johannes Godwin (Alexander Skarsgård), an inscrutable and overzealous director assigned to make a concert film of the Brat Tour, sponsored by Amazon. As he slowly but surely weasels his way into making more and more creative decisions, Charli XCX finds herself losing artistic control of her own tour.
The film has an unplanned, almost improvisational energy, with some scenes featuring so much overlapping dialogue and histrionics that the chaos becomes overwhelming. This energy shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone familiar with the aesthetics of the Brat era, where creative disarray and being intentionally off-putting were the names of the game. This is even drawn into the plot as a point of contention when the buffoonish Johannes complains about how the tour’s aggressive lighting plan might alienate some audience members. But from the film’s intense opening moments, which literally start with a flashing-lights warning, “The Moment” feels like a cinematic version of the emotional and impressionistic impact of the Brat era.
However, this means that the film pushes away viewers who aren’t already bought into the whole Brat experience. Indeed, this is less of a film in the traditional sense and more of a cinematic concept. As the film races toward the end of its runtime, it’s hard to see how it will be able to wrap things up in a satisfying way. It’s both ironic and somehow poetic that a movie about an artist grappling with the end of one defining era of her career (as one character assures her, “You’re not gonna die after an album cycle”) also struggles to land its ending.
But at the center of the questionable storytelling choices is Charli XCX’s genuinely fantastic performance. She’s not playing herself; she’s playing an exaggerated version of herself, or even more specifically, a version of the idea of herself, as possibly imagined by someone who only knows of her from the drug-praising, party-loving first-person lyrics of her album. Here, she’s impulsive, indecisive, distracted, exhausted, and, well, bratty. And even if it’s not always clear why she’s making some of the decisions she makes, that says more about the unclear writing than the star’s performance. The musician finds levels to her character’s off-putting qualities, making her compelling even at her most unpleasant. In one scene where she runs into Kylie Jenner (also playing a version of herself) at a spa, Charli XCX is framed at a deliberately unflattering angle, especially compared to the luminescent lighting given to Jenner. She’s shot here in an uncompromising close-up, her face contorting in an attempt to hide her discomfort. Zamiri’s camera pushes into the pop star without mercy throughout much of the film, further emphasizing the idea that the pressures of her celebrity status are suffocating her.
Alexander Skarsgård continues his reign of being absolutely game for anything (clearly a family trait). His Johannes is goofy and over-the-top, but in a way that is also threatening, like an exuberant but poorly trained dog whose actions are impossible to predict. Perhaps unsurprisingly, there are times when he borders on and even crosses over into being too broad. Hailey Gates is a captivating, steady presence as Celeste, Charli XCX’s artistic director and closest friend. Gates is grounded and believable, and she acquits herself as the most believable non-fiction performance in this fake documentary.
“The Moment” isn’t as much of a non-stop party as might be expected. Instead, it’s more of a psychological thriller-comedy, an unexpected genre classification which only feels right for an artist as innovative as Charli XCX. Those who yearn for a return to Brat Summer will find themselves happily bumpin’ that, but any viewers who feel nothing at the sight of the color tennis ball green would do well to pass.
