Fair warning: I will be using the word “brat” as a noun, an adjective, and a verb at various times throughout this review, and, given the context, it should be clear why. Additionally, another fair warning: this film uses copious amounts of strobe effects. Those with photosensitive conditions should tread lightly.
Charli XCX (Charlotte Emma Aitchison) captured the world — or at least a far larger number of listeners than her music ever had before — with her 2024 breakthrough album Brat. The mood and iconography of the dance-pop hit inspired a social-media branding bonanza known as “Brat Summer,” and now her mockumentary film The Moment has somewhat deconstructed this mood, even in its uneven state.
Directed by Aidan Zamiri, The Moment follows Charli, playing a version of herself as she navigates the fictionalized lead-up to the first events of the Brat world tour. Through the prism of an unrelentingly tense and awkward rehearsal period for the first show, the film explores how art and artist are not always inextricably linked, the unrealistic expectations of a crazed tweet-obsessed culture, and the general ups and downs of trying to navigate pleasing everyone in the music industry when your music blows up. To some, this may come off as nothing more than a vanity project; a film floundering to pretend it rests somewhere between I’m Still Here and the classic Christopher Guest music mockumentaries. From my perspective, it does less floundering than others may think, as it is keenly aware of how Charli is feeling at any given moment, and crucially, how she may not always be right.
The Moment isn’t so much a vanity project as it is a passion project. It feels like an attempt to discover what brat meant in a context where the world has bratted it to death, if you will. When director Johannes (Alexander Skarsgård) comes along to prepare to shoot the first concert of the tour, his sneakily domineering attitude threatens to un-brat all of the proceedings — i.e., make the show more family-friendly in a way which goofily clashes with Charli’s trademark nightclub aesthetic — and Charli is unsure if she should let that happen or not. Johannes’ granola-boy way of trying to seem totally chill while really just being all the worst stereotypical impulses of men in creative fields gets under everyone’s skin, including the audience, so much so that it takes the situation out of the realms of universality which Charli and Zamiri seem to have intended. What I mean to say is, there are moments in The Moment where it achieves Josie and the Pussycats levels of music-industry parody, but nearly as many moments where it’s just kind of treading water.
Whether their vibes are brat or not, many people throughout the film keep advising Charli to elongate the Brat moment (clearly so they can profit from it). But the film seems to have been made to eschew the notion that Charli is simply a product or a trend. Pop stars have made similar statements through film before, and although this film doesn’t entirely come together in every way one might like it to, it’s experimental and interesting enough to genuinely feel like nothing we’ve ever seen before. There is a mix of backstage drama, satirical comedy, and genuine pathos which makes the film utterly unique and certainly memorable. Though it probably won’t make nearly the same impact as the album from which it stemmed, The Moment is absolutely worth reckoning with and enjoying on the basis of its thematic credentials. | George Napper
