The Moment (2026)

I was looking over the movie listings for this week. I had very little idea what many of the movies there were even about, or I had seen them, or it was a sequel to a movie I haven’t seen (lookin’ at you, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple). But then I checked Rotten Tomatoes and noticed a number of these movies I was unfamiliar with had high scores, so I figured I should give one a shot. Which one? Well, The Moment, a fictionalized, fake documentary about singer Charli XCX’s Brat Summer tour was also listed on Rolling Stone‘s 50 Most Anticipated Movies of 2026 list. Do I know anything at all about Charli XCX? Not a damn thing. I was vaguely aware that “brat” was a thing in 2024. That was about it.

However, I will add here: there are a lot of flashing lights in this movie. This is not a movie for people prone to seizures.

Charli XCX (playing herself) is riding high from her breakout brat album. It’s 2024, she’s going on her first big arena tour, and everyone is about all things “brat,” whatever that means. If you aren’t really a fan of Charli, don’t expect an explanation. This movie is not about explanations. If anything, it’s about selling out. Charli has a good deal with her album, represented by one Tammy Pitman (Patricia Arquette), and she has, for some reason, put “brat” onto a credit card for a bank that isn’t doing all that well. There does seem to be one big problem in the form of Johannes (Alexander Skarsgard), the man contracted by Amazon to make a concert film for Charli’s tour. Charli and her longtime friend and artistic director Celeste (Hailey Benton Gates) have a vision for what the tour will be, something that is distinctly R-rated and unique to Charli’s artistic vision. Johannnes has his own vision for what the tour should be, and it is a lot less what Charli actually is all about.

But, then again, Charli may want to keep things going. There’s no handbook for this level of fame, and she’s a bit stressed out. It does look like Charli may make a lot of wrong decisions if she isn’t too careful or takes the wrong advice from the wrong people. There are people in Charli’s group that work for her, know what she’s all about, and what she is going to do, well, it’s not what they think she wants. But what does Charli want? Why give Johannes, the bank, or Atlantic Records what they want? How far will Charli go to get what she is after?

OK, so, there are a number of people in this movie playing themselves, and I have no idea who any of them are. There’s some fake critics blurbs at the end of the movie, and one says “Forget everything you know about Charli XCX,” and for me, that’s pretty easy. I can recognize a lot of the situations going on here. There are funny moments. Skarsgard’s fake rebel artist is something of a hoot, a man who cares more for his vision than spreading the vision of the artist whose tour he is supposedly chronicling. Most of the stuff I found amusing regarded Skarsgard, though part of that had more to do with the fact that between Charli’s accent, my tinnitus, and my general ignorance of Charli XCX’s music, to say nothing of most popular music right now, I wasn’t quite sure what was happening at times.

That may or may not be better for someone who actually is a Charli XCX fan. Charli isn’t a bad actress here. It may help that she’s playing a fictionalized version of herself, but she acquits herself well enough. I just had very little idea what was going on, and the movie’s frequent strobe effects didn’t help much. The basic stuff, the way an artist may sell out, whether out of ignorance or not, isn’t a new story, but how much of what I was seeing was just different from the actual Brat Summer tour? I don’t know. I think I might have gotten more out of this movie if I did.

Grade: C+