SUNDANCE: Charli XCX’s ‘The Moment’ Is Confusingly Boring

Riffing on the growing trend of arena performance films, and attempting to do it with humor first, The Moment (2026) is a mockumentary that tackles brat. Centered on Charli xcx’s meteoric rise in 2024 thanks to the slime green “brat,” the film is directed and co-written by Aidan Zamiri, his feature debut after previously directing Charli’s “360” music video. The film’s other co-writers include Bertie Brandes and Charli xcx herself. 

Charli xcx plays an exaggerated version of herself, surrounded by a cast inspired by real-life friends and enemies who came to define that era of the singer’s career. Most prominent are Hailey Gates as Charli’s friend, confidant, and Creative Director, and Alexander Skarsgård as Johannes, the director of Charli’s arena film. 

As Charli fights for creative control, she also grapples with what comes after success. That is the core of the mockumentary’s message, but it’s often lost in a bevy of jokes and moments that make the film anything but accessible for folks who aren’t extremely online. 

Charli xcx’s performance is fun, but it’s too often overshadowed.

While Charli xcx’s performance is, for the most part, the self she has shown to many by this point, it brings a natural humor to the film, even as the more contrived jokes and bits begin to fall apart. Throughout the film, director Aidan Zamiri tries to capture the weight Charli carries because of her success and the worry that comes with realizing it’s going to pass. 

In what is probably the most earnest scene in the film, Charli apologizes to her stylist for the need to postpone his wedding. When he says it will just be a few weeks, Charli is visibly uncomfortable and suggests he move it out farther so he doesn’t need to move it again. 

It’s The Moment’s most salient moment, but the film never investigates it. Despite being the film’s core theme, the only moments it comes into play are immediately pushed aside for humor that doesn’t land and for repetitive scenes that don’t advance the story. Even with Charli’s excellent performance, it’s overshadowed.

Alexander Skarsgård is the best part of The Moment (2026).

That said, the honor of The Moment’s best performance goes to Alexander Skarsgård. For his part, Skarsgård’s Johannes is a sexist director who lacks any sort of awareness whatsoever, and he plays it brilliantly. His eccentricities are the right kind of annoying, and the film is always better when he is on screen.

Despite being filled with actors, Skarsgård’s performance is the only one that feels like more than a shell. Surrounded by actors who do little more than recite lines, Skarsgård’s performance stands out as a full character beyond the actor just entering the film for a meme (unlike others in the film). 

While the overarching goal seems to be capturing the difficulty and fear of moving past your “moment” in time, which, for Charli xcx, was brat, the insincerity throughout the film and the overreliance on shocking strobe and cuts for style over substance muddies the message. 

The strobe-laden film focuses more on visuals than carrying any weight, but its biggest issue is how confused every choice it makes left me. Despite some genuine laughs, there isn’t enough happening to warrant any of its runtime

A24’s The Moment (2026) exists for the chronically online. 

By the middle of the film, The Moment’s thesis isn’t abandoned, but it is pasted over with trendy internet topics and moments that do more to distract and retread material we have already seen. The Moment (2026) doesn’t build toward anything; all it does is exist as a time capsule, and one likely to give you motion sickness or a seizure. 

Despite Alexander Skarsgård and Charli xcx’s performance, The Moment (2026) is vapid on the outside, and, on the inside, it ends up just being one long inside joke between friends. Much of the film is built to capitalize on the “brat” moment, as much as it exists to showcase how Charli lived through it (all exagerated of course).

Still, for people who were closely glued to their screens, they experienced nothing but that moment. I’m sure the film will make them happy, but anyone who comes in expecting the humor of other music mockumentaries won’t find it here.

This isn’t This is Spinal Tap, it isn’t Popstar, and it’s not even A Mighty Wind. While approaching this genre of film with a real popstar offers some interesting elements, it almost always feels empty. The Moment (2026) is boring at best, vapid at worst. But if there’s anything clear, it’s that the film is meant for Charli and her friends, and the target audience is anything but general.

The Moment (2026) is distributed by A24 and screened as part of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival.