Courtney Howard // Film Critic
THE MOMENT
Rated R, 1 hour and 43 minutes
Directed by: Aidan Zamiri
Starring: Charli xcx, Alexander Skarsgård, Hailey Gates, Jamie Demetriou, Rosanna Arquette, Rachel Sennott, Kate Berlant, Kylie Jenner
Charli xcx’s “Brat” album was a major movement in our modern pop culture zeitgeist. A genuine phenomenon. As regular folks struggled to live their best brat summer, or even define the meaning of the term “brat,” the dance club doyenne was selling out concert venues worldwide, re-conceptualizing her masterwork as duets with famous friends, and ushering her trademark flourescent lime color into the mainstream. She is the ultimate in cool, messy girl chic, dramatically fluffing her long black wavy hair on stage, strutting in tattered micro-miniskirts and the darkest of black wraparound sunglasses (perhaps a feminist reinterpretation of Bono’s alter-ego The Fly’s accessory d’arte). Though her song lyrics on that album expose her deep-seated anxieties and vulnerabilities, her “give no fucks” attitude, strong artistic vision and pioneering musical artistry aren’t to be trifled with.
Yet Charli’s (real name: Charlotte Aitchison) filmic depiction in THE MOMENT runs surprisingly incongruous to what she represents in real life. She’s playing a heightened version of herself, playfully ribbing the cringe-y archaic drawbacks of fame and success. However, it struggles to land many of those points. Director/ co-writer Aidan Zamiri’s scripted fictionalization of her whirlwind lifestyle as she puts on a concert for Amazon Music with an overbearing director does her no favors by adapting pop star trials and travails into a mockumentary style format. The satirical artifice that cloaks her salient sentiments is too transparent and try-hard, when bluntness would be daringly “brat.” And when it’s time for the film to get serious, capturing her mental health struggles from overwork, it has trouble communicating that worthy kind of commentary.
When we catch up with Charli, she’s taking a meeting with the head of her record label, Tammy (Rosanna Arquette), who’s eager to extend the massive financial windfall that was “Brat.” Charli’s team have come up with an idea to field Amazon Music’s offer to stage a concert film, helmed by the hottest director in the biz, Johannes (Alexander Skarsgård). Charli thinks his films with other music artists are pretty lousy, though they all are incredibly popular, so she goes along with the scheme (which requires a weighty suspension of disbelief, because really how much bigger can she get if she’s already on the top of the world).
Not long after Charli meets Johannes. the pair begin to butt heads. Even Celeste (Hailey Gates), Charli’s right hand woman/ creative director, hates him as he sucks the air out of a room, contributing terrible suggestions like making the show family friendly. During these prickly times, Charli wrestles with her image, branding a new debit card and feeling creatively bankrupt. So she high tails it to Ibiza to recharge. But she finds no sanctuary there, running into Kylie Jenner (playing herself), whose innocuous, barely-there “swipes” ramp up Charli’s stress surrounding the impending show. Charli is then forced to find a solution in the tug-of-war between Celeste and Johannes, as her wildly inept staff led by Tim (Jamie Demetriou) jostle to prevent a rip tide of brewing scandal from wiping away their bosses’ career.
Hijinks and hilarity do not ensue as easily as the party-starting, banging club classics on her record. The gags aren’t as funny, sharp, nor stinging as the creators think they are. With the exception of Kate Berlant, whose makeup artist character gets a humorous aside, the majority of the jokes feel forced, springing from heavily orchestrated scenarios. A handful of the actors – even Demetriou, who’s better skilled at improv style comedy than this performance would lead you to believe – awkwardly stutter and “umm” their way through their lines, making the spontaneity appear amateurish and stagey. Plus, the metaphor of the birds trapped in the rehearsal space without anyone tending to their basic needs and care isn’t lost on us.
The bank card fiasco Charli finds herself embroiled in is a far-fetched b-storyline, though at least it’s one we can understand as her branding deals becomes toxic. However, the biggest head scratcher at play is why one of the biggest pop stars on the planet would allow a collaborator like Johannes – who has not only a condescending, annoying temperament, but an entirely different creative ethos – to puppet her. She entertains his outlandish requests (like to be harnessed and fly on stage, as well as add dancers and giant props). It’s primarily at the behest of an ending where she’s set the stage to triumph over her precarious conundrum, taking back her power and control, killing her ego/ superego with a bastardized version of mainstream approval.
While no one is fit to tell Charli xcx what she should do creatively as she’s painstakingly earned the right to do whatever she wants, it’s difficult to ignore that a straightforward concert film would’ve suited her industry commentary and conflicts with fame better, a la MADONNA’S TRUTH OR DARE. Rachel Sennott is not nearly on the same level as Kevin Costner calling Madonna’s provocative concert “neat.” In terms of the adopted medium, this isn’t SPINAL TAP. It’s a bummer the feature fails to capture the real moment a groundbreaking artist – who tapped into a specific, special sound and worked her tap-pants-clad ass off over a decade – uncovered the balance between art, commerce and real happiness.
Grade: C-
THE MOMENT opens in theaters in limited release on January 30 and nationwide on February 6.
