Displaying items by tag: Rachel Sennot

THE MOMENT

UK/US, 2026, 115 minutes, Colour.

Charli XCX, Alexander Skarsgaard, Kater Berland, Rachel Sinnott, Isaac Powell, Jamie Demetriou, Rish Shah, Ben Castle-Gibb, Michael Workeye, Rosanna Arquette,

Directed by Aidan Zamiri.

The film has been described as a “Mockumentary”. This puts it in the vein of This Is Spinal Tap. While there is quite an amount of satire on the popular music industry with parody sequences, the portrait of the artist, in herself, with those in attendance, planning, interactions and betrayals, mean that there are serious themes underlying the whole venture.

And, it is a project of Charlie XCX, ideas and treatment, which raises a question of how much it is a vanity project or not.

And, the success of the film and its popularity will depend on the reputation of the singer, over so many years, her albums, success, the BRAT Summer, her personality in herself, her personality on stage and screen. Her fans will accept her. Those who do not know her as a singer (some knowing her for her song compositions for Emerald Fennell’s version of Wuthering Heights) may not find her as a particularly striking personality.

And, for those not caught up in life behind the scenes, some of the material may be quite uninteresting, some using the word “boring”,. And some of it might seem quite pretentious, self-indulgent.

The thing is that this is the story of Charlie XCX and her Essex origins, her success, her team, various managers, especially Tim, her falling out with Celeste, the importance of the business connections and promotions with characters played by Rosanna Arquette and the various British entrepreneurs linking up with promotion companies like Amazon, and a significant presence of the director of the concert film, played eccentrically by Alexandder Skarsgaard, enjoying the opportunity and, while Charlie herself is hoisted high, trying to direct her, in another scene, explaining how she might recite introductory lines, doing a much better impersonation of a diva than the singer herself!

And, the style of the film is very much television and streaming promotion, words, dates, neon signs et cetera flashing throughout the film all over the screen. Some of the editing is fast paced – but the more dramatic sequences rather slow. Ultimately, there is the staging of the concert in London’s Dome.

There are also the personal dilemmas of the singer herself and a particularly striking sequence where she goes to a skin specialist who begins to criticise her, her skin, her tensions, her inner self, then refusing to work with the singer. Upset, she leaves and encounters a rival star who enthuses about the specialist, then is forced to buy a whole lot of goods from the Centre, using her special BRAT credit card – leading to complete financial crisis and bankruptcy for the backers sponsoring the singer.

If this sounds interesting, audiences should have a look. If it does not sound interesting – it will not be interesting to watch.