The Moment Review: The Charli XCX Brat Phenomenon Gets A Bitterly Hilarious Mockumentary

Who is Charli XCX? On a base level, it's a question posed by those out of touch with the music scene of today, something increasingly common now that music distribution has become so scattered by algorithms taking the place of curation. On a deeper level, the question begs a follow up: can we ever truly know, and why do we need to? This aspect has been tied to celebrity for eons, and it's something which pop stars especially have continually struggled with. The "musician movie," for lack of a better term, has manifested in various guises over the years. Folks like Elvis Presley and David Bowie went ahead and became full-blown movie stars, while bands like The Beatles and KISS put themselves into genre exercises. Then there are thinly-veiled confessional dramas, like Prince's "Purple Rain" and The Weeknd's "Hurry Up Tomorrow." And, of course, there's the hybrid concert film and documentary, from "ABBA: The Movie" to Taylor Swift's "Miss Americana."

The two most foundational musician films are ones which play fast and loose with celebrity and reality: Richard Lester's "A Hard Day's Night" (starring The Beatles) and Rob Reiner's "This is Spinal Tap" (starring the fictional titular group). It's these two films which star Charli and co-writer/director Aidan Zamiri's first feature, "The Moment," seeks to aspire to the most. Charli, aka Charlotte Emma Aitchison, is a British pop singer who could still be called niche until her sixth album, "Brat," exploded in 2024. "The Moment" is ostensibly a film which takes a look at the "Brat" phenomenon, only it does so through a heavily fictionalized mockumentary lens. As such, "The Moment" is not just a knowing bit of self-deprecation and obfuscation on Charli's part, but is also a fascinating, often bitterly hilarious media satire.

Up until "The Moment" premiered at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival, it wasn't clear from the movie's advance marketing just what type of film it was to be. Adrian Zamiri and Charli XCX lean into that uncertainty as part of the performance art of the movie. "The Moment" is set during the summer of 2024, when "brat summer" became a meme along with the album's rampant popularity. Charli (playing herself) is a veteran pop star suddenly facing worldwide megastardom, and her label Atlantic Records are jumping at every chance to capitalize on this newfound success. Mixed in with various bits of real life hype and viral moments that occurred in the wake of "Brat" (such as the "Apple" choreography from Tik Tok) are fictionalized incidents, like Charli making an uncomfortable appearance on "The Late Show With Stephen Colbert" or participating in a magazine photoshoot where odd collaborators like Molly (Kate Berlant) pressure her into making trite creative choices.

All of that comes to a head with the preparations for the "Brat" world tour, as Charli's longtime friend and creative director Celeste (Hailey Benton Gates) is slowly but surely pushed aside by the record label in favor of the trendy and highly problematic film director Johannes Godwin (Alexander Skarsgård). It's through Skarsgård's performance that "The Moment" really finds its satiric voice, as the actor creates an indelible, awful showbiz wolf in sheep's clothing. Godwin is like John Glover's character from "Scrooged" dialed up to eleven. Skarsgård and Zamiri keep Godwin's antics both hilarious and believable, as he dismantles and sensationalizes the concert (and Charli's image) bit by seemingly innocuous bit until it's too far gone. Thus, "The Moment" isn't a mockumentary about the real life "Brat" experience and tour, but an alt-history in which Charli sells herself out.

"The Moment" will undeniably disappoint fans who come to it hoping to experience the real life Charli XCX. It's clear that Charli isn't interested in presenting her true self unfiltered, something which most pop stars like to give the appearance of these days. Instead, her screen "Charli XCX" is a deliberately cheeky obfuscation. She's as much victim as she is perpetrator; one moment, Charli is being railroaded and manipulated by the men that surround her, not just Godwin but her manager Tim (Jamie Demetriou), forcing her to harm her integrity by way of sycophantic platitudes. Another moment, Charli is a hot mess, attending drug-fueled ragers and taking off for a vacation in Ibiza just when Celeste needs her most. A large subplot of the film involves Charli naively agreeing to sponsor a "Brat" credit card campaign and the various issues which spiral from that poor decision.

Charli's performance as this skewed, fictionalized version of herself is fueled by this ambivalence. It's not clear which aspects of the screen Charli are her being confessional, which are her living out some self-deprecating (or self-destructive) fantasies, and which are her and Aidan Zamiri just having a laugh. Yet this ambiguity makes her work in the film that much stronger, especially during moments when some truth appears to bubble to the surface. In one scene, Charli is made by Godwin to rehearse the most personal song on "Brat," "I Might Say Something Stupid," while wearing a gaudy outfit and flying on wires high in the air. It's a scene that carries as much sincerity as it does satire; while this incident never actually happened, it communicates Charli the person's anxieties about performing such nakedly intimate thoughts and feelings for millions.

In addition to potentially alienating Charli XCX's fan base, "The Moment" risks annoying anyone coming to see a movie about a musician, as there's simply not a ton of performances in it. There are a couple, sure, and the score by frequent Charli collaborator A.G. Cook gives the film a pulse. Yet "The Moment" is not a music movie, not even in the way more experimental efforts like "A Hard Day's Night" or The Monkees' "Head" are. Instead, the film it feels closest to is 2019's "Mister America," a spin-off of the long running alt-comedy "On Cinema" universe. That film, as with all "On Cinema," features comedian Tim Heidecker playing a bizarre fictionalized version of himself, and only those in the know understand the myriad deep levels of satire present in it. Under that lens, "The Moment" seems uniquely brazen, as Charli and Aidan Zamiri seem to be intentionally looking to antagonize and challenge the audience rather than appeal to them.

Thus, "The Moment" is ironically the perfect cinematic companion to "Brat," in that it does its own thing without concern for the masses. The added irony on top, which is that Charli's new level of stardom makes such a choice borderline irresponsible or unlikeable, only makes the film's intentions feel more resonant, not less. Most celebrities bristle against the reality that fame means they no longer can fully belong to themselves anymore, and "The Moment" as a reaction to this makes the film intriguing. Love it or hate it, believe it to be honest or self-indulgent, "The Moment" is a movie that refuses to pander, and for that, I appreciate it. We may never know who the real Charli XCX is, but unlike the fictional Charli, she seems to be putting herself out there on her own terms.

/Film Rating: 7 out of 10

"The Moment" opens in theaters on January 30, 2026.