Could anything be more brat than a mockumentary about brat itself? The strobe-lit, satirical chaos of The Moment says no. Directed by Glaswegian Aidan Zamiri, the creative director behind the guerrilla-style press tours for Timothee Chalamet’s A Complete Unknown and Marty Supreme, The Moment is part homage, part reproach to the cultural zeitgeist that was (or, as the film attempts to explore, still is?) Charli XCX’s brat era. The 2024 album influenced an entire summer, was crowned word of the year by Collins Dictionary (defined as a “confident, independent and hedonistic attitude”), and all but reinvented the colour green. But two years on, The Moment asks: Is brat forever?
Charli doesn’t know. Having recently taken the plunge into acting through Julia Jackman’s 100 Nights of Hero and upcoming I Want Your Sex from Gregg Araki, The Moment sees the pop star play a version of herself in the lead-up to her first arena tour. Every Charli makes seems to hinge on the longevity of brat; should this be her brand forever, or should she let it, and all of its connotations, die? And if she does, how could she possibly create anything better than the album that shot her to superstardom?
These anxieties are shared by the rest of her team, particularly record label chief Tammy (Rosanna Arquette), who is determined to keep the brat cash flow coming, hiring zany director Johannes (Alexander Skarsgård) to shoot a concert film for Amazon and signing off on a bizarre brat credit card collaboration. What results is an entertaining but equally uneasy fly-on-the-wall look at the tumultuous weeks leading up to Charli’s first brat show. Though these are satirical events, they are things that have certainly happened tenfold in showbiz. It’s hard not to feel sympathy for fictional Charli and her real-life counterpart as she is pushed and pulled in several directions, her creative input undercut by the corporate anxieties of her ineffectual manager Tim (Jamie Demetriou) and her wider team.
What starts as a pretty standard pop star parody kicks into another gear of hilarity in the hands of Skarsgard’s Johannes. He is a walking, talking ego that is determined to overthrow the established brat aesthetic in favour of a censored, kitsch version suitable for streaming to the masses. He comes head-to-head with the creative director and friend of Charli, Celeste (Hailey Benton Gates), and in true Skarsgard fashion, steals every scene that he’s in.
Zamiri frames Johannes’ inherent narcissism and dismissal of any female creative input as very obvious satire, but it also speaks to a much larger issue than The Moment has time to properly delve into, meaning Johannes doesn’t reach the heights of absurdity that Skarsgard is capable of. The same can be said for Charli and her supporting cast: as she jets off to a free hotel stay in Ibiza to escape the creative war happening in rehearsals, she butts heads with an uncanny beautician (Arielle Dombasle) who adds new concerns around skin elasticity to the pop stars already full plate, before bumping into an ‘exaggerated’ yet equally funny Kylie Jenner whose pretense of perfection pushes her into a frenzied spiral.
It’s at this point that things really start to crumble, but in a way that feels thwarted. There is a missed opportunity to boil things over into the insanity that comes with the celebrity lifestyle, a turn that would have worked especially well under Sean Price William’s hyperactive camerawork. The Moment is inherently chaotic, sure, with people arguing over credit cards and gigantic, flaming lighters and different shades of green in doomsday fashion, but things could have dialled up if Zamiri made space for a more visceral and unhinged breakdown of celebrity that Charli XCX is certainly capable of.
The Moment is altogether an ambitious, self-doubt-infused exploration of one of the most memorable pop eras of our time. It’s not the performance-filled tribute that one might expect (although a couple of tracks do make appearances), and while it might struggle to hold up in the face of those not familiar with brat and all of its exploits, it is certainly a successful feature debut from Aidan Zamiri, and another notch in the steadily lengthening acting belt for Charli. It’s fun, at times a little stupid and self-indulgent, but also vulnerable in its act of showcasing the darker sides of fame in the face of capitalist anxieties. Real life is far from brat all of the time, but as a film, The Moment certainly is.
★★★★
In UK Cinemas February 20th / Charli XCX, Kylie Jenner, Rachel Sennott, Alexander Skarsgard / Dir. Aidan Zamiri / A24, Universal Pictures / 15
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