The Moment review: This Charli XCX fan had a blast
After riding high with the phenomenal success of her 2024 album Brat, Charli XCX finally brings that era to a close with her concert mockumentary The Moment.
During the height of Brat summer, Charli was approached to make a concert film documenting her tour, but she didn’t want to do that and suggested making a mockumentary instead. The Moment, directed by Aidan Zamiri based on her original idea, imagines what might have happened if she went through with that plan and follows a fictionalised version of the pop star as she begins rehearsals for her tour. There is a bad case of creative differences between her tour creative Celeste (Hailey Benton Gates) and the director of the concert film, Johannes (Alexander Skarsgard), with Charli caught in the middle.
While it may be heightened and not completely true to life, The Moment does a brilliant job of capturing the ups and downs of being a pop star, particularly one who has reached a whole new level of fame and success. Before Brat, her label essentially gave her free reign but now they want so much of her in an attempt to prolong Brat summer for as long as possible. They – and by extension Johannes – also want to make her concert universally appealing and family friendly, thereby stripping away its Charli-ness (and looking a lot like The Eras Tour).
Charli is booked and busy, exhausted and under a lot of pressure to keep the momentum of Brat going. You get the sense that she’s not calling the shots in her own life, needs to get off the hamster wheel for a bit and get rid of some of the yes men, like her weedy manager Tim (Jamie Demetriou). Also, her success hasn’t changed how she feels about herself and she still feels less than in the presence of stunning celebrities like Kylie Jenner. Jenner’s cameo is hilarious, one of the highlights, and the embodiment of Charli’s song Sympathy Is A Knife.
The Moment is really funny, although the sense of humour specifically caters to people who know Brat and Charli super well and have their finger on the pulse of popular culture. Charli pokes fun at herself and some of the things she did while promoting Brat, such as headlining a concert for a credit card company and doing a What’s In My Bag? video. There are also fun cameos from Rachel Sennott and Julia Fox, fake clips from The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and Las Culturistas, etc. As the title suggests, it captures a very specific moment in time and may not age well. But hey ho, this works as a time capsule!
Other highlights include the brilliantly edited opening (soundtracked by a 365 remix), the bright, rapid on-screen graphics, and Johannes giving Charli a script for when she speaks to the audience mid-show. That got the biggest laughs. Skarsgard is very funny as the overstepping director and Demetriou is painfully awkward as her bumbling manager but I was most impressed by Charli herself, particularly in the quieter, more introspective moments. Whether she’s playing herself or not, she came across really well and I felt sorry for her being pushed in so many directions. She really allowed herself to be vulnerable and unflattering on camera and I respect that.
Ultimately, The Moment plays it pretty safe when it could have been a biting satire and is less effective when it deviates from reality too much towards the end. However, it has a superb sense of humour and a lot of interesting things to say. I had a blast with this. Time to give Brat another listen!
In cinemas now