By Hannah Brueske

Perhaps The Moment did manage to nail one truth about the music industry: when fame and opportunity come knocking, it’s near impossible not to wring out every drop of profit.

The Moment, directed by Aidan Zamiri. Screening at Somerville Theatre, AMC Assembly Row 12. Coolidge Corner Theatre, Alamo Drafthouse Seaport.

A scene featuring Charli XCX in The Moment.

With the release of her sixth studio album, Brat, in the early summer of 2024, British hyper-pop artist Charli XCX became a cultural phenomenon. Her songs inspired viral TikTok dances and nurtured drug habits (at a “Brat” themed club I attended in Minneapolis, the line for the bathroom was solely for cocaine). In fact, she seized an entire season, dubbed “Brat summer” by fans, who refused to see it end with the start of fall. The recording even earned the endorsement of the Democrats’ presidential campaign. After Charli knighted Kamala Harris in a tweet, writing “kamala IS brat,” the candidate rebranded her Twitter (X) profile to match the lime green “Brat” aesthetic.

Brat catapulted Charli to instant global pop icon status, after years of branding herself as the “fuck the mainstream” cool girl. With The Moment, a mockumentary Charli conceived at the height of “Brat” summer, she tries to prove that, though she’s welcomed this new level of stardom, underneath the major brand endorsements, awards, and flashy celebrity friends, she’s still really cool.

Made only for those already familiar with what “Brat” is all about, The Moment presents itself as a behind-the-scenes look into Charli’s world. It is set between a six-month period — between the release of her album and the start of her “Brat” tour. Freshly crowned as the new “it-girl,” Charli is paraded from one vapid brand deal to the next; we see her try to maintain control of her creative vision while everyone around her is only interested in making a quick buck off of her newfound popularity. Eventually, she begins to work with the insufferable — though inexplicably popular — filmmaker Johannes (played by Alexander Skarsgård), who is out to make a polished, family-friendly, Amazon Prime financed “Brat” tour film. Eventually, Charli cracks under the pressure and, after a quick vacation in Ibiza, relinquishes her creative control over the project entirely.

According to The Hollywood Reporter “Charli viewed The Moment as a chance to be more truthful about the music industry than anything she’d previously seen in a narrative film.” The problem is that there is no “untold truth” here. Stripped of its hyper-stylish direction and boiled down to the message of its narrative, it’s yes another cliché portrayal of the price of fame, and the neverending battle between independent artistic vision and dependent corporate greed.

The film is too “cool” to go into these issues beyond surface level, busy trying to disguise how serious it thinks it is by skewing everything with an inconsistent satirical tone. A plethora of guest stars, mostly a round-up of current it-girls, including Kylie Jenner, Rachel Sennott, and Julia Fox, play lampoon versions of themselves, serving up foolproof one-liners and Gen-Z buzz words. This self-deprecation is never very cutting — the sarcasm about celebrity dimwittedness is soft and safe.  And still it suggests, unconvincingly, that these performers should be lauded for being so bravely self aware. The Moment protects Charli from being undermined — there are no attempts to make fun of her earnestness. Viewers are expected to laugh at those around her, but feel only sympathy for the put-upon star.

The mockumentary claims to be an expose, but it is vague about how much of what is portrayed is a real portrayal of Charli’s experience. Fans might feel like they are getting unbridled access into this public figure’s most private self — an assurance of authenticity that would feel refreshing if it was, well, authentic. Just as much as Charli controls her public image, this fictional private self is also carefully curated at every step. Every frame of The Moment has been fashioned to put the singer in a good light.

The only other fleshed-out character in the film, “the only one who gets it,” is Charli’s creative director, Celeste, played by Hailey Gates. She fights hard to stay artistically true to her and Charli’s vision for the tour and to block Johannes’ lame ideas. The conflict with Skarsgård’s ridiculous caricature of a commercial director doesn’t seem to be taking place in the same universe — one character is stuck in a farce, the other is lost in a straight drama.

Eventually, the film version of Charli cracks under the pressure, leaving Johannes at the creative helm of the tour. Of course, this is not the first time that she has let herself be sold as a product. In an earlier sequence, a begrudging Charli is made to film a “What’s in my bag” video for British Vogue. Then she appears on the Stephen Colbert show to promote her album. And, in the biggest commodification stunt of the film, she launches a “Brat”-themed credit card in partnership with a big bank. “What would have happened if Charli had succumbed to corporate greed in real life?” the film seems to ask.

This question would be interesting if these segments contradicted real life. Charli has taken part in a British Vogue video and appeared on several talk shows to promote her album. During her “Brat” era she agreed to brand partnerships with the likes of Converse, Acne Studios, Skims, Adidas, and even Roblox. The “Brat” popularity wave created a brand monster — one that Charli — in and out of the film — sustained with a robust marketing team, making deals regarding merchandise and billboards, and masterminding widespread social media campaigns.

The Moment itself is a part of that selling machine — yet another commodification of Charli’s “Brat” brand. The hypocritical kicker is that the film pretends, in a painfully nonchalant way, to offer a critique of the very game that it is playing and profiting from. The film calls out capitalism — while money is being poured into selling it as an artist-driven think piece.

In one of her most recent TikToks, Charli struts up to the camera in a very Charli XCX branded outfit — a white tank top, tiny shorts, and little black sunglasses — holding the popular prebiotic soda, Poppi. As she nears the camera, all she says is “vibes.”

“Totally vibes!!! #poppipartner,” the caption reads. And so the cycle continues.

Perhaps The Moment did manage to nail one truth about the music industry: when fame and opportunity come knocking, it’s near impossible not to wring out every drop of profit. These days, that strategy can include making what claims to be a self-aware attack on marketing into just another exercise in marketing.

Hannah Brueske is a senior journalism student at Emerson College, with a special interest in feature stories, arts reporting, and documentary filmmaking. She is active in campus publications as a projects editor for The Berkeley Beacon, Emerson’s only independent student newspaper, and the editor-in-chief of The Independent, an arts magazine that covers independent art. She just finished directing her first documentary short about the experience of transfer students and hopes to work on more documentary films soon. After graduating next December she plans to move to New York City to continue chasing and contributing to the worlds of art and culture.