The Moment

Is This Really the Post-BRAT Hangover?

If you don’t like what you are doing, then why do it? Honestly, that question stayed with me for the whole runtime of this meta-mockumentary about Charli XCX’s 2024 BRAT Summer.

With an initial scepticism, at some point curious won, and I decided to see this cinematic portrait of a modern pop-icon at the top of her career, parodying the industry with a satire film about the fear of not wanting to stay forever—not denying that Alexander Skarsgård and Rosanna Arquette were a big call for me.

To be fair, I want to say that though I am not her fan, I walked into the theatre without prejudice and with an open mind. But as soon as “The Moment”’s neon lights flood the theatre, boredom kicks in.

The intention is honourable, but the faux cinéma-vérité approach repeatedly exposes how the music industry works, as though such revelation were necessary.

Not that a 9-to-5 job can’t drain ambition and identity; success does not hold a monopoly on exhaustion. Watching Charli appear already to be crowning the zeitgeist therefore becomes oddly irritating.

The film attempts to engage with perceptions of social status, authenticity and performative burnout through celebrity fatigue and privileged suffering. But how many times are fans expected to sympathise with this narrative? Is it not considerably harsher to pursue one’s ambitions indefinitely without reward?

The contradiction often circles on hypocrisy—especially during the Ibiza time-off scene, where even recovery within extreme luxury appears framed as another burden to endure.

Unconsciously (perhaps), the film exposes a form of fame detachment, though not with the clarity it seems to intend. Viewers are encouraged to sympathise with her exhaustion, while in ordinary life burnout rarely gets such compassion. The satire begins to collapse under its own self-awareness.

Whether intentional or not, the film’s portrayal of draining exhaustion risks reinforcing the indifference it appears to critique.

The frenetic pacing offers little clarity, making the narrative difficult to follow, even if this reflects the bombastic stroboscopic chaos of the BRAT Summer. I understand the controversy being expressed: the industry inflates every piece of an artist’s identity, sidelining personal artistic vision in favour of glamorous shows and profit.

Still, “The Moment” never convinced me that it fully interrogates this machinery while simultaneously participating in it.

The feeling I’m left with is that “The Moment” wants to remain vague on where Charli the woman ends and Charli the fictional persona begins—though this is an exceptional introduction to Charli XCX’s future cinema star.

Whether intentional or not, the ambiguity weakens emotional investment.

I’m also very sorry to say Alexander Skarsgård fails, his excessive parody which feels pushed beyond into deliberate cringeness rather than satire. On the contrary, Kylie Jenner’s cameo proves surprisingly effective. Her carefully manufactured persona becomes one of the film’s most revealing, and perhaps most honest, depictions of contemporary celebrity culture.

A complete disaster? No. But it falls considerably short of the incisive satire it promises.

In attempting to aestheticise the very system it seeks to criticise, the film exposes the paradox at the heart of the BRAT phenomenon: when self-awareness replaces reflection, critique risks becoming another form of branding.