PREMISE
A rising pop star navigates the complexities of fame and industry pressure while preparing for her arena tour debut.
THE GOOD STUFF
CHARLI XCX- Ultimately, this is an exciting turn for Charlie XCX. Though it is a mockumentary, this is something that requires XCX to portray an increased state of anxiety and vulnerability. I don’t know this artist well enough to know whether those emotions come naturally to her, but as the film goes on, you can definitely tell her mental deterioration. There’s no makeup or frazzled hair Hollywood trickery to show her decline. It’s all in her body language. These moments of stress are definitely something she’s experienced in real life, and it shows. Kudos are deserved for expressing this type of vulnerability in the first place.
BACKSTAGE POLITICS – By far the most interesting part of this mockumentary is the backstage politics that lead to the characters played by Alexander Skarsgard and Hailey Gates. The clash between corporate interests and artistic intent has been covered in a ton of things over the years, especially in music, and especially in women’s music. The interesting thing about having a mockumentary cover this subject is that you get to shamelessly portray the characters in black-and-white terms, with no gray area, and you get to push those perspectives to the absolute extremes with composite characters to prove a point. The interesting thing this movie does is show that both sides have a point for what they do. This part of the movie is definitely the most interesting, and the performances of Skarsgard and Gates are the highlight of the film.
THE BAD STUFF
IBIZA- Right when the backstage politics aspect of the story was getting the most interesting… this film, for some reason, decodes to send Charli to Ibiza for some much-needed relaxation, even though she’s 2 weeks out from her opening performance. From this point in the movie, the comedy’s been relatively subtle, and works more often than it doesn’t. This Ibiza part of the film is meant to be more brazenly funny, and it simply doesn’t work. You could have cut this section from the film entirely, and it wouldn’t have changed a thing. I understand what they were trying to do to show the escalation of Charli’s mental deterioration, but this whole sequence was a pacing killer.
THE UGLY STUFF
THE STROBE LIGHTING EFFECT- Again, I don’t know enough about this artist to understand if displaying flashing fluorescent lighting is one of her artistic trademarks at all, but holy f****** s*** is it hyper aggressive throughout this film. The elongated mini-music video opening sequence would have been bad enough. Still, as it turns out, every transition to another scene is bookended by flashing neon lights on the screen; it’s almost as if it’s a jump scare.
If you HAVE EPILEPSY, you should stay far away from the auditoriums where this plays. To those of us who are not, this is an awfully annoying thing to endure time and again. You have to be a fast reader to catch the jokes that are written on the screen when these transitions occur.
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This is a valiant effort. You either have to be a serious fan of Charli XCX to enjoy this, or if you don’t know anything at all, it’s also a surprisingly well-done mockumentary about a subject that is absolutely sympathetic and likable. Charli never comes off as someone who hasn’t worked hard or someone who doesn’t deserve her shine. It doesn’t seem as if vanity is the primary motivator for this. This is entertaining as well.
THE MOMENT is in theaters now