Charli XCX released her now three-time Grammy-winning album “Brat” in June 2024. The album and its aesthetic went on to define the year. People could not go anywhere without seeing the recognizable lime-green background.
The album led to two different sold-out arena tours: her sold-out collaborative arena tour with Troye Sivan, “Sweat Tour,” and her solo tour, “Brat Tour.”
At the final stop of the “Brat Tour” in Gwacheon-si, South Korea, Charli XCX left the “Brat” era with a cryptic message. “Please don’t let it be over,” she wrote on Instagram along with the first mention of her next project, titled “The Moment.”
Back in January, Variety announced Charli XCX would be collaborating with A24 to produce a movie called “The Moment,” based on her own original idea. Not much information would be provided from the announcement, other than it would be written and directed by Aidan Zamiri, who directed the “360” and “Guess feat. Billie Eilish” music videos during the “Brat” era.
The project would continue to go unmentioned until Oct. 9, 2025, with a video clip on Charli XCX’s Instagram. The seizure-inducing clip would share members of the star-studded cast, including Alexander Skarsgard, Rachel Sennott, Kylie Jenner and Rosanna Arquette. The film will also include music from A.G. Cook, who produced much of the “Brat” album.
The film is based on a message from Charli XCX sent to director Zamiri during the “Sweat Tour.” Zamiri told Vanity Fair that the message was “this feeling of having just almost got everything she could have wanted, and what that felt like on kind of a human level.”
This interview with Charli XCX and Zamiri was the first indication of what the film would be about. The film will likely be a metafiction acknowledging that it’s supposed to be a concert film or documentary, while criticizing the pressure to make one by the music industry.
Metafiction is defined as a self-conscious acknowledgement of its own nature, while also making it difficult to differentiate what is real and what is fake. Charli XCX acknowledged this in an Instagram caption in the same style as her “Brat” deluxe album title, saying “‘The Moment' and it’s a movie about ‘Brat' and Charli and a tour but none of it happened but maybe some of it did.”
The trailer, released in November, would show just how meta the film would get. In the trailer, a label executive and film director, played by Arquette and Skarsgard, are attempting to keep the “Brat” era going while also being recorded for the “documentary” that is meant for that exact purpose. Sennott’s character also directly acknowledges the camera, telling the person behind it to “delete it.”
It also showed just how difficult it would be to tell what was real and what wasn’t, with several clips replicating the moments that take place on stage during the “Brat Tour.” The clips could be genuine scenes from rehearsals of the tour or artificially made ones for the film.
This film is an extension of the massive year Charli XCX had in 2024. It is the first on her list of films she is a part of, including her original album for the film “Wuthering Heights,” which will be released just two weeks after “The Moment.”
“The Moment” is set to release Jan. 30, with the earliest date in Ohio set for Feb. 5.
