THE MOMENT. Brat Summer Forever [REVIEW]

Our Charli XCX, the star of The Moment, has truly gone all in on film. The British singer’s ties with cinema have been growing stronger and stronger lately. Her summer tour, dubbed brat summer—during which Charli promoted, among other things, the work of Joachim Trier, Ari Aster, and Paul Thomas Anderson—turned out to be merely a prelude to what was to come.

Over the next several months, the pop star composed the score for a major Hollywood production, fulfilled every cinephile’s dream by visiting the prestigious Criterion Closet, and appeared as an actress in—no less than—four different feature films, including one shot in Poland. Charli’s biggest role to date came in The Moment, an A24-produced mockumentary in which she confronts her public image and the aftermath of the massive success of her album brat.

It is September 2024. As summer draws to a close, the brat summer phenomenon begins to fade. Charli herself doesn’t seem particularly bothered—she would much rather keep roaming nightclubs with her manager and snorting cocaine alongside Rachel Sennott. But the label she works with—represented by the ruthless Tammy (Rosanna Arquette)—has other plans. Brat summer cannot be allowed to end; it must continue, preferably forever, plugging everyone involved into an inexhaustible stream of money. The plan is simple: stage a show the world has never seen before. Then film it. For posterity—and for future viewers who will happily stream the concert movie on a platform, perhaps persuading their parents to spring for an annual subscription in the process.

Unsurprisingly, The Moment is first and foremost a satire about how poor artists are exploited by a ruthless industry. Squeezed like lemons, enslaved by trends they themselves created—they would like to make art on their own terms, but in a reality shaped by corporations, advertising, and social media, that proves extremely difficult, and in some cases outright impossible.

Making his feature debut, Aidan Zamiri portrays this machinery through several parallel storylines. The most significant involve a personalized brat credit card aimed exclusively at queer customers (a brilliant and, unfortunately, not entirely absurd example of queerbaiting), as well as the aforementioned concert film, which evolves from a light and pleasant project into a veritable nightmare. The transformation is driven by label executives who impose the services of a celebrated director of such documentaries—one Johannes, an utterly unpredictable and unstable man, played with tremendous comic flair by Alexander Skarsgård. Every scene featuring the Swede is comedic gold, and it’s a shame there isn’t more of him.

There is, however, plenty of Charli XCX. The inquisitive camera of Sean Price Williams—an outstanding cinematographer and a fairly solid director in his own right—sticks close to the singer. It moves in as tightly as possible, capturing every grimace, every raised eyebrow and eye roll, which is no small feat given that the protagonist spends most of the time wearing dark sunglasses. The task facing the British star in The Moment was both simple and difficult. To convincingly create an alternative version of oneself requires not so much acting talent as courage and a healthy sense of distance. Charli possesses both, and as a result she comes across as remarkably authentic on screen.

She is at her best when she doesn’t use the mockumentary format to deliver earnest commentary on her situation, but instead winks at her fans and openly pokes fun at her own image. Take the scene in which a limousine driver plays the music video for “Boom Clap” on his smartphone and then makes a crude remark about how much she has changed. “Yeah, I don’t make music for movies about kids with cancer anymore,” Charli shoots back dryly.

“Are you pulling a Joaquin Phoenix?” Rachel Sennott asks when she spots the ever-present camera accompanying Charli into a club bathroom. The reference is, of course, to the legendary mockumentary I’m Still Here, known in Poland under the title Joaquin Phoenix. Jestem, jaki jestem. Back then, Casey Affleck and Joaquin Phoenix fooled all of Hollywood, creating a project that spilled beyond fiction and infected reality itself.

Neither Charli nor Zamiri—primarily a music video director—seem to harbor similar ambitions. In that sense, The Moment is closer to films like This Is Spinal Tap or Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping: light-hearted, insider-laden comedies that poke fun at the absurdities of the music industry. Charli XCX fans will feel right at home in this convention. Everyone else will have to settle for a decent, if somewhat formulaic, tale about the highs and lows of fame—and for Alexander Skarsgård’s outstanding performance.