I’ve always liked Charli xcx but, like the rest of the world, I really fell in love with her album “Brat”. If you didn’t have a Brat Summer in 2024… were you living under a rock??? A year and half later, Charli is reviving “Brat” just to kill it again with her mockumentary, The Moment. The film, based on an original idea by Charli herself, sees her collaborating with director Aidan Zamiri in his feature directorial debut. Zamiri previously worked with Charli when he directed the music videos for her songs “360” and “Guess” off of “Brat”. He also made a name for himself working with Timothée Chalamet on the now viral press tours for A Complete Unknown and Marty Supreme (a partnership that may have led to a cameo in this movie?). After the most prolific moment of her music career, Charli has turned her focus towards film. She has multiple projects in the pipeline, but The Moment is the most personal as she was fully involved in the creation of it and it is also about her. I found it to be a really fun time at the movies with an impressive showing from a lot of first-timers in the feature film world, even though it did leave me slightly wanting.

The Moment takes place from September to November 2024, just as Brat Summer is coming to an end. It follows Charli, playing a fictionalized version of herself, about to embark on her first arena tour while dealing with the constant requests of people around her trying to milk “Brat” for all it’s worth and a concert film director attempting to undermine her artistic vision for more commercial success. The film opens with a short montage of news clips to highlight the astronomical success of “Brat” and Charli’s ascendance in fame, but it honestly doesn’t do much to fill you in on Charli’s background or the actual album if you aren’t already in the know. So here’s a quick catchup: Charli has been around in the music industry for over a decade with some decent mainstream hits (“I Love It”, “Fancy”, “Boom Clap”) and big career moments (like opening for Taylor Swift on the Reputation Stadium Tour? More on that later..) but never really broke big. “Brat” catapulted her to massive success, not just taking over the music charts but becoming a mindset that claimed a whole season. Soon after, the word “Brat” had an entirely new meaning and the album’s distinct green color was everywhere. Brands across the globe were jumping to capitalize on the trend. “Brat” then got even more notoriety when it entered the world of politics after Charli tweeted, “Kamala IS brat,” in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election. “Brat” was everywhere and everything. It epitomized cool and so did its creator. And though Charli had been around in the industry for a while, nothing can ever prepare you for this level of fame. 

That’s what The Moment tries to address: how a pop star navigates newfound fame and success. The film attempts to satirize the vampiric nature of record labels and brands doing anything they can to keep making money off of popular artists. In this case, that’s keeping “Brat” going after summer ends. Maybe my favorite recurring bit in the film was Charli’s partnership with a bank to start a “gay credit card”. But the most important and impactful part of the “Brat” industry equation is making a “Brat” tour documentary or concert film. Charli says she was actually approached several times about doing this very thing. Zamiri told Variety, “She was like, ‘Well, that feels like the opposite of what I’ve tried to do with Brat.’ That feels like the expected route of capitalizing on something which has been successful, whereas the bigger swing would be to take a format like that and disrupt it.” Real-life Charli chose to make The Moment instead of a traditional concert film. But the fictional Charli within the film feels forced into being what everyone wants her to be and compromises her artistry and integrity for commercialism. In that way, the film reads to me as an alternate reality of what would have or could have happened if Charli had “sold out” instead of staying true to herself. A cautionary tale. But it’s with those mixed intentions that the movie loses itself sometimes. It never lets itself be silly enough or biting enough to fully satirize the music industry or capitalism or the nature of celebrity. Films like This Is Spinal Tap and Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping have been cited often in conversation with The Moment because of their mockumentary style and music industry subject matter. But those movies are farcical spoofs, more straightforward comedies. The Moment is deadpan in its humor and played straight. It was definitely funny and had some really good moments, but I kept wanting it to cut a little deeper. Or expand on ideas that are briefly referenced and then thrown away. But at the end of the day, “Brat” and Charli xcx’s number one currency is cool. And there’s an undeniable limit of how funny you can be when cool is your north star. 

On the other hand, The Moment is also not quite earnest enough to be an honest and intimate reflection of what it’s really like to be at the center of a media tidal wave. It can be a dangerous game to pick and choose what is true to life and what’s not in a movie like this, a mockumentary that has Charli playing a fictionalized version of herself. But it is based on her real life so it does make me curious how much is real. The seemingly most sincere moment of the film comes at the end when Charli delivers a monologue over voicemail to explain her decision to abandon her convictions and change her entire persona for this concert film. It essentially boils down to the fact that all she’s ever wanted is for people to like her. That’s why she’s in this profession, that’s why she’s holding on to the success of “Brat” for dear life. Because I can only be me, this speech immediately made me think of Taylor Swift. I know, I know, that’s an extremely loaded statement in this context. Not only do Charli and Taylor have a pretty bitter ongoing feud at the moment (there’s a whole long, complicated history here I won’t get into but feel free to reach out to me if you want the details), but many have also read this film as a direct attack on Taylor and the mainstream commercialism of her career. But hear me out for a second. It’s a shame they hate each other because I think they do actually have a lot in common. Taylor has often spoken about how childhood wounds of never fitting in or feeling liked or accepted shaped her into the person and the artist she is today. I think it’s probably a common formative feeling amongst most creatives and fuels the work they do. You can see it in the themes that run through both women’s songs. Obviously not the partying and drugs Charli sings about, but other ideas like the wondering about how to balance your personal life and your career (for Taylor’s take listen “The Prophecy”, for Charli’s listen to “I think about it all the time”) or feeling insecure around other girls. I mean, all of this is kind of what the “Girl, so confusing” remix with Lorde is about: the way girls think another girl hates you because she’s standoffish, but really she’s so insecure about herself she’s just projecting this mean front. That song was my pick for my top song of 2024. I wrote of it at the time: “While I don’t necessarily think it’s the best song of the year, this song is more important than people are giving it credit for. It’s easy to dismiss it for its hyper pop, party sound, but the lyrics are shockingly real and cutting. To me, this song is girlhood in a nutshell. It is a stream of consciousness confession from two women who both think the other is rude and bitchy when, in reality, they are both overcompensating for their own insecurities. Society loves to pit women against each other but this shows how many conflicts could be fixed and wounds could be healed just by having honest conversations. I would have never guessed that a song that sounded like this could make me cry. I think it’s powerful and authentic and, yeah, fun to dance to!” Anyways, Charli’s monologue just pinged that for me and made me think that deep down we’re all more similar than we are different. That’s not the message of the movie at all, but, being a Swiftie, I just made that connection and thought about it. True or not, it’s a brave and honest moment of reflection in the movie. And, yes, you can be a fan of both Taylor and Charli! You can enjoy Taylor’s full-pop world domination and Charli’s “fuck the system” attitude. It’s allowed and actually encouraged! By me. It’s probably too far gone at this point but, if any part of this admission from Charli is real, I’m still holding out a sliver of hope that one day they can work it out on the remix.

The mockumentary style of the film was also a little muddled. The cameras are shaky, handheld, and frenetic, very much adding to the high anxiety and claustrophobia Charli is feeling. But it also provides some humor when a few characters give fourth-wall breaking, Jim from The Office style looks into the camera. However, sometimes the characters would acknowledge the cameras filming them and following them around, but sometimes they wouldn’t. And even when they’re acknowledged, they’re never spoken to directly save for one moment at the end of the film with Charli’s close friend and creative director, Celeste (Hailey Benton Gates). It’s never clear what exactly the purpose of these cameras are in the first place. What are they filming for? The movie often feels more like we’re a fly on the wall than watching a “documentary” take place, which isn’t a bad thing, it’s just not what they seemingly set out to do.

While this technically isn’t Charli’s first acting role or her first time playing herself, it is definitely the most substantial performance she’s had to date, playing the lead instead of just a cameo appearance. The movie rests on her shoulders. I thought she was really great in a tense, heightened role, portraying both the eye-rolling absurdity of the situation she finds herself in and the vulnerability of defining who she is and who she wants to be, standing up for herself as an artist, and the very real fear of grappling with the potential end of your relevance as a star. Zamiri told Variety, “[Charli] identified how it felt to achieve everything you’d ever hoped for, something you’d worked for 15 years — and then all you can feel is this dread of knowing that it’s slipping through your fingers immediately.” She shows her range tackling straight-faced comedy, emotional meltdowns, and cool confidence. Alexander Skarsgård is good in everything he does and The Moment is no exception. As the concert film director, he’s the most purely comedic role in the film but also plays it with a sinister edge. I found him (predictably) so funny and incredible. Unpredictably was the one-scene performance by Kylie Jenner in her first-ever acting role. When The Moment first premiered at the Sundance Film Festival only a week before its release, the note I saw most often was that Kylie was actually really good in the movie. I was skeptical for sure, but I can confirm the rumors are true: Kylie was great and so funny. Granted, she was just playing herself, but her comedic timing was on point and her scene is fairly pivotal to the film. Maybe her relationship with Timmy is paying off in more ways than one. I also just have to shout out the Las Culturistas cameo. Matt and Bowen on the big screen, even if it was just for a few seconds, is everything to me. 

I think The Moment has a lot of really talented people with so much potential and includes a bunch of great ideas that just needed some honing. It’s tonally, thematically, and stylistically trying to have it both ways. It’s a mockumentary but it’s also not. It’s a satire but it doesn’t cut deep enough. It’s sincere but is it genuine? Messiness is kind of Charli’s brand so maybe this all tracks. I’m excited to see what Charli continues to do in the film space and Aidan Zamiri is just getting started on what I’m sure will be a feature film career with his own distinct aesthetic. I also can’t believe I’m saying this but I feel like I need to see Kylie Jenner in more things now! Despite the flaws, I had a really fun time watching The Moment. I don’t know if this was the intention, but I did spend the next few days after seeing the film exclusively listening to “Brat”. Charli may be ready for her next era, but “Brat” will never die.

2026 Count: 7 movies, 3 seasons of television, 0 specials