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Let’s start with the positive. Pop star Charli XCX surveyed the concert film and documentary landscape and decided to do something different. This is a wonderful artistic instinct. She went with mockumentary for the film she would produce and star in. And that’s where the new film The Moment falls apart.
The Moment sees Charli XCX at the end of her heavily-marketed Brat summer—2024, remember? The color was chartreuse and it was all about partying?—on the cusp of the Brat world tour. The central tension revolves around who will be the creative director for the Brat tour: Charli’s longtime friend and collaborator Celeste (Hailey Benton Gates) or critically-lauded newcomer Johannes (Alexander Skarsgård)?
The film starts with strobe lights and Charli XCX oiled up and writhing on the floor in rehearsals for the Brat tour to the song “365.” That’s the only real Charli XCX musical performance in the film. Instead, it’s mostly Charli smoking, pouting, stomping and stressing over the tour. It’s no fun at all. It’s also not funny. Skarsgård plays his role to the rafters and gets a few chuckles, but that’s it. So, if it’s not sexy, it’s not poppy and it’s not funny, that leaves dramatic. But the film falls apart there, too, since the whole mockumentary genre means there are no actual stakes. So what are there for? The mild absurdity? I’m too busy.
Selena Gomez perfected the pop-stardom-is-misery documentary space with her 2022 offering My Mind & Me, which centered on her struggles with bipolar disorder, lupus and exhaustion. And concert docs are a dime a dozen, with every major pop star grabbing a little extra cash on the way off the stage from their world tours. Charli XCX tried to occupy the space in between with The Moment. A worthy experiment, perhaps, but hopefully it’s one-and-done.
SEE IT: The Moment at Laurelhurst Theater, Cinemark Century Eastport Plaza 16, Cinemark Cedar Hills 16, Regal Fox Tower, Regal Lloyd Center and Regal Bridgeport Village. R.
