The Moment ★★★★

Released: 20 February 2026

Director: Aidan Zamiri

Starring: Charli XCX, Alexander Skarsgard

In 2014, one of the most iconic moments in pop history went viral. It showed Charli XCX screaming at a German festival crowd over their lack of enthusiasm while performing her smash hit collaboration with Swedish duo Icona Pop, ‘I Love It’. “I thought this song was big in Germany,” will go down in the history books. The song dominated UK charts in the summer of 2013, in fact, I recall it playing on what seemed like on a loop at my school prom that year. Since then, Charli has remained an underappreciated key player in the industry. Turning out the bops but never getting the recognition we all knew she truly deserved. That all changed in 2024 when her sixth studio album, Brat, became an instant worldwide phenomenon. The Moment, directed and written by Aidan Zamiri, based on the original story by the singer (whose real name is Charlotte Aitchson), explores the themes of modern day ‘cringe culture’ in the pop genre, while highlighting the pressures artists experience to keep popular momentum going at its peak.

‘Brat Summer Forever,’ is the goal in The Moment. Charli is at the height of her career, but with that has created intense strain from her music label Atlantic Records on keeping the album cycle going for another summer. The mockumentary follows the singer preparing for her big arena tour which is funded through a Howard Sterling Brat themed credit card promo. In charge of the creative production is Celeste (Hailey Benton Gates), those club scene vibes are aligned with Charli’s, but is quickly dismantled when Johannes (Alexander Skarsgard), a director brought in to film a concert movie for Amazon, steps in. From arguments over the intensity of flashing strobe lights to set design, the tour which is due to start within weeks is a complete mess. As the singer goes to Ibiza on a free trip (she does have to post social media pics in return) she bumps into Kylie Jenner, whose chat changes her mind-set on the whole direction, ultimately going against her own wants for the project.

It is rare for a music satire film to fully capture all elements of feelings as well as The Moment does. Zamiri captures in great style the humorous side of the failures and pressures, whilst highlighting the real anxieties of losing grasp on what reality is in an industry that is controlled by everyone bar the artists themselves. Films like this need to exist in the modern day era of social media trending. Throughout the Brat cycle, trends such as the Apple dance, the ‘Brat wall’ and even the fashion became something you could not escape from in the best way possible. The era generated a cultural phenomenon that brought in a new generation of Charli fans that perhaps never understood her previous work until this album. Ultimately, The Moment pokes fun at all of that with no filter, full rein of highlighting both the positive and negative impacts of these societal trends within the music industry.

Throughout the artist’s career she’s often been compared to other key female music figures, and this is something that has often been constructed in a negative light within the media – whether true or not. In recent years, there’s been numerous notions of XCX’s relationship with fellow pop star Taylor Swift, which neither have confirmed, nor denied. The final scene in The Moment is open for interpretation on these rumours. Charli’s Brat tour is re-envisioned by Johannes as not the club classic scene she had originally intended, but a bubbly and overly-pop infused affair, one that shares similarities to Swift’s successful Era’s Tour.

In reality, both Brat and The Moment are chaotic pieces of art. Both original and highly effective in their intended approaches. One musically capturing the hardships of generational trauma, and the other creating a striking look at the industry demands of a popular era that no one could have predicted. I might have a migraine from the strobe lights, but The Moment has the right amount of fun and vulnerability to it, one where you can understand the need to say goodbye to Brat.