RATING: ★★ / ★★★★★

If you have no clue what the Khia Asylum is or who Cal Chuchesta is, The Moment may not be for you. This movie really expects you to be someone in the know of music and especially Charli XCX’s career, which I guess makes sense given the nature of the film, it being a mockumentary and all. Still, I can’t help but feel like this was somewhat the wrong direction to take, even as a fan of Charli since her first album, True Romance.

The Moment follows a fictionalized Charli XCX as she and her team prepare for the tour of her real-life successful album, Brat. At this point, Charli has already been disillusioned by all the phony promotions and brand deals that come with having a hit pop album, but also feels the need to keep appearances up and do what she can to ensure her recent fame doesn’t fade away. All these conflicting feelings are challenged when Amazon Music produces a concert film based on the Brat tour, and the film’s director, Johannes Godwin, suffers creative differences with Charli and her team.

For a movie so determined to blur the lines between fiction and reality, The Moment feels strangely detached from its protagonist. It’s as if, because she’s a real person, the film thought Charli was a three-dimensional character by default, which not only makes this alienating for non-fans, but it also simply isn’t true. Charli the protagonist still needs strong writing as much as any protagonist in a fictional movie should. Charli XCX isn’t even a credited writer for this film, so I’m not surprised it ended up feeling so… inauthentically authentic.

It’s like someone’s diary being written by a ghostwriter. The outline is there, but the entire thing feels like it should’ve been more detailed, more substantial. It’s like they knew what the big emotional moments were going to be, but winged it with how they would get to those points.

This fictionalized version of Charli just doesn’t match the Charli who’s been so good at writing about her inner life. The Charli who’s made six albums and four mixtapes, most of which are critically acclaimed. Hell, it doesn’t match the Charli who made the Brat album. You’re telling me the artist who wrote Sympathy Is a Knife, Girl, So Confusing, and Apple could be this easy to intimidate and make insecure? What happened to all that emotional intelligence and self-awareness?

That’s not to say someone of her position and experience could never feel insecure, but important details were missing to make these moments of desperation and imposter syndrome feel convincing. This character legitimately feels like she just released her first or second album, rather than someone who’s been in the industry for quite some time.

But even if I took this Charli XCX as a completely fictionalized character, it still wouldn’t work. Charli here is just too much of a non-character. Just from this film, who is she, really? She’s a stressed-out popstar, but what else? She doesn’t seem to have much of a personal life, and I had no clue who she was outside of her job. I felt like many of actual Charli’s 3-minute songs could tell me more about who she is than this 100-minute film could. She doesn’t even feel all that necessary by the third act, as all the conflicts just sort of resolve without her doing anything.

That said, it’s certainly a very atmospheric film, which I appreciated, though I’m not sure about the fact that they acknowledge there are cameras following them around. Not only is this film about making a concert film, which makes it doubly confusing — are they making two films, one a documentary and one a concert recording? — but certain scenes felt impossible to have been filmed by a documentary camera crew.

It’s also pretty funny at times, but I feel like there were jokes here that I just didn’t get because I’m not that big of a music nerd. Well, at least I got enough. Ultimately, The Moment is an interesting but half-baked film that I admire more than I actually like. I’d say it’s really only worth watching if you’re a Charli XCX fan, but even then, you’re better off listening to her music instead.