The Moment

Charlotte Aitchison, aka Grammy award-winning artist Charli xcx, has been chasing her moment for a while. She has described herself in her lyrics as “famous but not quite… one foot in a normal life”; her music was critically acclaimed but not chart-topping. But then came Brat. Summer 2024 was declared ‘Brat Summer’ after the hedonistic yet introspective album. Charli xcx went from niche it girl to stratospheric practically overnight, and, of course, became the subject of intense media attention.

The Moment’s tagline — “and it’s a movie about brat and charli and a tour but none of it happened but maybe some of it did” — pretty much says it all. This is a mockumentary set in September 2024: as Brat Summer inevitably comes to an end, Charli, playing a fictionalised version of herself, feels the pressure to keep the momentum going while her sense of self, both as an artist and an individual, begins to fracture. “Don’t you just think the whole, like, ‘Keep having a Brat summer!’ thing is a bit cringe?” she frets to her team. Who is she, once the party’s over?

Reuniting with Aidan Zamiri, director of music videos for Brat’s ‘360’ and ‘Guess’, Charli takes us into an alternative version of events in the lead up to the Brat tour. The line between fact and fiction is deliberately blurred (“Are you doing, like, a Joaquin Phoenix thing?” asks Rachel Sennott, also playing herself), but it feels like a painfully true depiction of the music industry. Bumbling manager Tim (Stath Lets Flats’ Jamie Demetriou) is a strictly comedic creation, but cutthroat executive Tammy (Rosanna Arquette) seems all too real as she breathes down everyone’s neck, determined to squeeze every last penny out of the Brat phenomenon.

A meta This Is Spinal Tap for Gen Z, The Moment is at its best when it’s skewering the commercial obligations that are now part of the pop-star package, even if it’s more arch than laugh-out-loud funny. And credit should go to the star for being unafraid of making fun of herself: it’s difficult to deny the film’s status as a vanity project, and yet it isn’t an especially flattering self-portrait. Her alter ego is chronically insecure, a little bit selfish and unwilling to stand up for her creative partners, let alone her own ideas. It’s odd to praise a person’s performance as themselves, but Charli has a natural sense of comic timing and manages to remain empathetic.

The Moment probably doesn’t offer much to anyone not already a Charli fan — and its mockumentary form hardly reinvents the wheel. But Charli herself is a winning screen presence, and by eschewing a more obvious ‘be careful what you wish for’ narrative for something a bit knottier, the film casts itself as an antidote to bland corporate tie-ins in favour of something edgier and, yes, brattier.