I have an inexplicable weakness for the mockumentary genre. If a film is labeled “mockumentary,” I will watch it all — that’s how I ended up seeing both seasons of American Vandal, 7 Days in Hell, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, and a few others.
There’s a charm to this genre I can’t quite explain. Maybe it’s the shaky camera, maybe the absurdity disguised as reality. It’s my unconditional guilty pleasure: I give it a pass on everything and watch whatever I can get my hands on.
So Moment was inevitable — a film with Charli XCX about Charli XCX preparing for a show.
It was her album Brat in 2024 that reminded me — and the world — how fun, brazen, and inventive dance/hyperpop can be (old-school Kylie Minogue, please come back!).
I.
What is Brat?
Brat is a global pop phenomenon: shameless and blunt. The sixth album by the British artist, which propelled her to the top of the charts at 31 — after a full decade of moderate, almost niche success. A story that reminds us: everyone gets — and will get — their five minutes of fame, if they want them badly enough.
The film tells the viewer about the price of holding onto those “five minutes,” about the exhausting attempt to keep the Moment once it has already begun to slip away.The film immediately strikes the right tone, leaving all illusions and romanticization at the door. The music industry is portrayed as a surreal, cynical conveyor belt. It’s almost an industrial drama shot through a warped mirror. Farce, smoke, and mirage disguised as authenticity.Real excerpts from Charli XCX’s interviews and performances are mixed with fictional ones; absurdity is elevated to the heavens, and you accept it as fact: what you’re watching is not the real Charli, but her simulation.And it’s damn fun.
II.
The Heroine
The on-screen Charli is a creature of many weaknesses. She wants to be liked by everyone, but she lacks an inner core, which leads her to push many situations to climaxes that could have been avoided, had she been even slightly braver.
To be loved by others > to be honest with yourself and others.
Charli is full of self-doubt, constantly comparing herself to everyone else. Her self-love is measured by how much others love her.
Charli herself doesn’t want to be Charli, yet the world wants her forever stuck in an eternal Brat Summer: either a paradise for party girls or a limbo for any self-respecting artist. What happens when the album outlives itself? When the “summer” ends? Will anyone remember her?
III.
God save the Skarsgårds
At first, the film’s comedic element feels like nothing more than formal politeness. Until Alexander Skarsgård appears on screen.
After his role as a BDSM biker in Pillion, Skarsgård in Moment transforms into the complete opposite — a director of music tour documentaries — and absolutely destroys the room. By the final third, the audience was relentlessly cackling, snorting, gasping for air. Skarsgård a.k.a. Jonas is ruthless, self-satisfied, utterly unstoppable.
Despite the heavy Swedish artillery, the rest of the cast does not fall behind and holds the level. Jamie Demetriou is excellent as the squeezed-out manager (hello, Channel 4 and my school years). Haley Gates is convincing as Celeste — Charli’s close friend and, simultaneously, the creative director of her tours; perhaps the most grounded character in the film, existing in the same reality as us.
In short: I recommend watching it, but I don’t claim objectivity. Maybe it’s all the power of Alexander Skarsgård, or maybe it’s Bittersweet Symphony — my #1 song for at least 18 years now — playing in the finale with an almost cathartic, cleansing effect.
Moment is mean, self-aware, ironic. It laughs at itself and at everything living inside it. Exactly the kind of film an artist should make about themselves. And for that alone, Charli XCX deserves all the accolades.
Rating: 4/5
P.S. When selling tickets, they warn about intense flashing lights to avoid epileptic seizures. Weaklings. Anyone who watched Lux Æterna by Gaspar Noé in theaters back in 2019 isn’t scared of such disclaimers.
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