By EVAN FERNANDEZ/Staff Writer
As Charli xcx herself puts it, she’s exhausted from always having to be the cool one, the innovator, the future of pop music constantly expected to push the needle of culture forward. So when she was approached about making a traditional concert film for her brat arena tour, she turned it down. Instead, Charli chose to create something that felt truer to the chaos, messiness, and overdrawness that defined the end of her brat era. That decision ultimately became her film, The Moment.
The film is directed by Aidan Zamiri and written by Zamiri with help from Bertie Brandes, based on an original idea by Charli herself. The Moment is a mockumentary that follows a exaggerated version of Charli as she prepares for her first headlining arena tour. While it draws heavily from her real life, the film leans into satire, exaggeration, and self-parody and its using the mockumentary format to blur the line between authenticity and performance.
The cast of “The Moment” at the Sundance premiere Friday night. Photo by Sundanceorg
I felt that The Moment successfully balances the comedic messiness of the brat era with the raw emotion and vulnerability that comes with it. There are plenty of genuinely funny moments that showcase Charli xcx’s sharp comedic timing, but the film is at its strongest when it allows her vulnerability to take center stage.
One moment that has stayed with me occurs during a rehearsal for the tour, when Charli is suspended in the air, an idea that the director of the traditional concert film her label originally hired pushed for when he took over as creative director. In that moment, she asks her assistant, Tim Potts, played by Jamie Demetriou, if she looks stupid hanging there, and he answers with hesitation, “No.” As she performs “i might say something stupid,” a song centered on not belonging in a space that once felt like home, the scene becomes devastating. It’s clear that Charli no longer felt connected to the version of herself the tour is presenting, almost as if the tour no longer belongs to her at all.
As the outro plays, the film cuts forward, foreshadowing the backlash against Charli and the brat album itself, with Tim quietly asking himself what she is even doing up there. A moment that feels heavy with regret and doubt. This scene encapsulates the film’s emotional core, the fear of losing control of your own narrative, and the exhaustion that comes from constantly being expected to be the cool one.
On the flip side, the film closes with a scene that functions as an advertisement for the concert film the label originally wanted. It presents a deliberately hollow, mainstream version of the brat tour, the version shaped by the hired director rather than Charli and her actual creative director Celeste, played by Hailey Benton Gates. The sequence is staged to feel aggressively commercialized and corporate, leaning into satire through its glossy visuals and empty praise. One on-screen review simply reads, “A massive production,” reducing the entire experience to its scale rather than its substance.
Many viewers have interpreted this moment as a pointed critique of the hyper-corporate pop machine and the way mainstream pop stardom often prioritizes spectacle over authenticity. By ending the film this way, Charli seems less interested in celebrating success and more focused on exposing how easily an artist’s vision can be flattened into something extremely commercialable.
Ultimately, The Moment works extremely well as a film because it fully commits to what it is trying to be. Rather than functioning as a traditional concert documentary, it uses a loose, fragmented structure to mirror Charli’s own emotional state during this part of her life where everyone is expecting even more from her. The lack of a normal narrative arc or triumphant payoff doesn’t feel like a flaw but an honest choice that strengthens the film’s themes of burnout, loss of control, and creative exhaustion. The film’s emotional restraint is one of its greatest standouts. By refusing to overexplain its scenes of vulnerability, The Moment allows that discomfort to linger with you, making the satirical elements feel sharper and the quieter scenes more meaningful. The mockumentary format creates distance, but that distance has purpose; it reflects the way Charli herself seems disconnected from the version of success that she has always wanted.
What makes the film successful is its consistency of that vision and taste for creatives that Charli has always had an eye for. Every stylistic choice, from the exaggerated corporate satire to the muted emotional beats, serves the same central idea: that success does not always feel rewarding, even when it comes from an artist finally exercising full creative control in their art. The Moment may not offer the catharsis or celebration some viewers expect, but as a film, it succeeds by staying honest to its perspective and refusing to compromise it.
FINAL SCORE – 9.8/10
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