.png){kind=logo}
1 week ago
15
Following its Sundance Film Festival premiere, one week ahead of its theatrical release on January 30, the Charli XCX mockumentary The Moment is receiving mixed reviews. The movie is directed by Aidan Zamiri, who helmed the “360” music video, and stars Charli XCX as a fictionalized version of herself as she prepares for a world tour in support of her album Brat in 2024. The first reviews celebrate her acting, but this might be just for the die-hard fans, if even them.
Here’s what critics are saying about The Moment:
Is it a successful exercise for the pop star?
While it’s not a complete home run, in the end, it delivers. Because, love it or hate it, this film will linger with you.
— Gregory Ellwood, The Playlist
The Moment [is] such a fascinating look at fame… a work of grand, messy ambition.
— Chase Hutchinson, TheWrap
Pretty far from cringe… The Moment is a funny and perceptive peek at the roller coaster that is Charli XCX’s life.
— Travis Hopson, Punch Drunk Critics
None of it works. I’ll cut to the quick: The Moment is an unmitigated disaster.
— Gregory Nussen, ScreenRant
(Photo by A24)Will only Charli XCX Fans appreciate it?
Her fans are going to love it. It might even create some new ones.
— Travis Hopson, Punch Drunk Critics
It’s difficult to imagine [its] shortcomings mattering to die-hard fans eager to catch a glimpse of Charli’s behind-the-scenes life — even a fake one such as this.
— Nick Schager, The Daily Beast
What fans got instead of the oversaturated music doc genre the film so deliciously satirizes, is a spiritual sequel to Spice World as a psychological thriller, and I don’t think any of them will complain.
— Glenn Garner, Deadline Hollywood Daily
I had naively anticipated more of an explainer on Brat’s whole deal — a sort of thesis breakdown of the phenomenon’s evolution and philosophy. But the film… assumes its audience is already well-versed in all that.
— Richard Lawson, The Hollywood Reporter
What if you’re just a casual fan?
It’s a film that’s most exciting for Charli XCX fans who want more of their favorite singer, but the deeper ideas it wrestles with are what make it worth experiencing by all.
— Chase Hutchinson, TheWrap
For the more casual viewer, The Moment is entertaining enough, for a while.
— Richard Lawson, The Hollywood Reporter
Those not already invested in the singer won’t find much to latch onto, save for a few intriguing if undeveloped notions about pop-culture power dynamics.
— Nick Schager, The Daily Beast
For a non-Brat outsider, little seems uniquely Charli XCX.
— Fred Topel, United Press International
(Photo by A24)Is this clearly an A24 movie?
Several sequences veer into outright horror, suggesting an A24-inflected vision of pop stardom as bodily and psychological siege.
— Martin Tsai, AwardsWatch
The film is like a bizarre cross between This is Spinal Tap and [A24’s] Uncut Gems, in which XCX plays a mostly aloof version of herself until she is pushed to a breaking point.
— Gregory Nussen, ScreenRant
How is the script?
In this script written by Zamiri and Bertie Brandes, this isn’t a celebration of BRAT, it’s a deconstruction of it. This is a movie about a public figure who begins to question all the bold choices she made to reach this peak in the first place.
— Gregory Ellwood, The Playlist
The film is most interested in the fraught existential questions that lurk in the shadows of fame… For Zamiri, his co-writer Bertie Brandes and Charli XCX herself, The Moment is a statement about the alienating nature of fame.
— Chase Hutchinson, TheWrap
[The screenplay] offers little more than a narrative skeleton, complete with uniformly superficial characters.
— Nick Schager, The Daily Beast
Does it work as a send-up of the music industry?
The fact that [Charli XCX] approved this script will leave many in the music industry with some big questions.
— Gregory Ellwood, The Playlist
Don’t expect this to be like This Is Spinal Tap or Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, as it isn’t really about skewering the music industry via more self-contained sketches. Said industry is still shown to be an often nightmarish one, but it’s all about the way it impacts the artist navigating it.
— Chase Hutchinson, TheWrap
It’s not really satire. It’s just chaos.
— Fred Topel, United Press International
I actually think The Moment should have pushed further into crackpot satirical extremes.
— Owen Gleiberman, Variety
I wish that it… went harder on the spoofy stuff.
— Richard Lawson, The Hollywood Reporter
(Photo by A24)Is it funny?
The Moment [is] full of funny yet throwaway bits about the mundane and frustrating aspects of maintaining a personal brand.
— Chase Hutchinson, TheWrap
[It’s] occasionally funny… certainly not as funny overall as it should be.
— Gregory Ellwood, The Playlist
While some jokes land, others get lost in the noise of everyone talking at once.
— Amber Wilkinson, ScreenDaily
The jokes are understated (a generous way to put it, given that the jokes are so understated you’re barely going to laugh at them).
— Owen Gleiberman, Variety
Some of [the] interludes of creative clash are funny, but the joke runs dry fairly quickly.
— Richard Lawson, The Hollywood Reporter
How does the film look?
The Moment is, in fact, filled with nobly against-the-grain elements: a warm, over-saturated palette that invites us into the frazzled psyche of a star; dynamic, verité-style cinematography by Sean Price Williams, which conveys the jittery reality of high-wire fame.
— Adrian Horton, Guardian
The Moment has its own visual language — the film is repeatedly intercut with flashes of light and text that resemble more of a concert or night at the club than it does a standard mockumentary, a nod to Charli’s “brat” aesthetic.
— Chase Hutchinson, TheWrap
Zamiri also cheats somewhat with the mockumentary element, using so many angles that, despite the hyper-kinetic camerawork from Sean Price Williams, the action appears too slick to be real fly-on-the-wall.
— Amber Wilkinson, ScreenDaily
Visually, Zamiri periodically abandons realism altogether. Flashing title cards and intrusive logos nod toward the graphic provocations of Gaspar Noé collaborator Tom Kan.
— Martin Tsai, AwardsWatch
(Photo by A24)Does it sometimes feel like a real documentary?
The Moment does a good job of staging the early scenes of the movie as, in essence, a documentary.
— Owen Gleiberman, Variety
Like many a real music documentary, The Moment eventually treads into the realm of hagiography.
— Richard Lawson, The Hollywood Reporter
In an era when music documentaries increasingly function as deluxe extensions of public relations campaigns, The Moment is notable for its refusal to mythologize its subject.
— Martin Tsai, AwardsWatch
How is Charli XCX’s performance?
Charli [is] a natural, engaging actor.
— Richard Lawson, The Hollywood Reporter
Charli delivers a heightened, dynamic performance.
— Glenn Garner, Deadline Hollywood Daily
Charli turns in an impressive, funny, and at times very moving performance as this version of herself, channeling the anxieties, fears, and self-doubt that begin to take over the character as the film progresses.
— Chase Hutchinson, TheWrap
She delivers a monologue as this version of Charli that is borderline heartbreaking… She’s startlingly good. Even if she’s playing “herself.”
— Gregory Ellwood, The Playlist
She is surprisingly good at playing this version of herself.
— Travis Hopson, Punch Drunk Critics
Charli, stuttering and flustered, comes off as mechanical, a student still struggling to push outside her well-worn persona.
— Adrian Horton, Guardian
(Photo by A24)Does Alexander Skarsgård steal the movie?
Skarsgard steals almost every scene he’s in.
— Amber Wilkinson, ScreenDaily
The best by far is Alexander Skarsgard… The role is perfect for the towering Swedish actor, who plays passive-aggressive toxic masculinity with the best of them.
— Travis Hopson, Punch Drunk Critics
Johannes [is] a role that seems custom-fit for the Swedish actor, who takes up all the oxygen in the room with an effortless chauvinism.
— Glenn Garner, Deadline Hollywood Daily
Skarsgård’s performance anchors the satire… [He] nails the specific cadence of institutional arrogance — the soothing voice, the empty abstractions, the certainty mistaken for insight.
— Martin Tsai, AwardsWatch
The driving antagonistic force of the film is Alexander Skarsgård’s wonderfully annoying hack of a director… [He] moves beyond mere shtick to serve as a sinister, soulless embodiment of all that artists stand to lose.
— Chase Hutchinson, TheWrap
Skarsgård is ridiculous and obnoxious in a character that is so cartoonishly buffoonish it seems impossible to believe he’d actually exist.
— Gregory Nussen, ScreenRant
Are there any fun cameos?
Rachel Sennott… wonderfully pokes fun at herself running into Charli at a Paris after-party. Even Kylie Jenner isn’t afraid to let the audience know she’s in on the joke.
— Gregory Ellwood, The Playlist
Some of these moments flirt with inside baseball, reducing the backstage world to a parade of recognizable faces rather than a sustained creative ecosystem.
— Martin Tsai, AwardsWatch
The Moment opens in theaters in limited release on January 30, 2026.
English (US) ·