Charli XXCX is taking Sundance by storm ahead of the world premiere of “The Moment,” a concert mockumentary about the fictional pop star embarking on an ambitious tour for her album “Brat.” The singer joined Audible’s Variety Studio hours before the film’s premiere and spoke candidly about the film’s origins, including turning down the label’s initial pitch.
“I was approached to make a more traditional touring film based on the Brat show I was doing,” Charlie explained. “It felt like a way for the record company to extend the life of the album. I wasn’t really interested in that. I was only interested in subverting the shape of something very traditional.”
“I was thinking about how I could twist what I went through through the album cycle into a feature film. What I ended up with was a satire on not only the music industry, but myself. As soon as I put something out there, I felt like I could talk about the loss of pop culture, fame, and art. This felt like fertile ground for ideas.”
Joining Charlie in the film are Rosanna Arquette, Kate Berlant, Jamie Demetriou, Haley Benton Gates, Rachel Sennott, Isaac Powell, and Alexander Skarsgård. Some actors play fictional versions of themselves (Sennot), while others play fictional versions of real people on Charlie’s team (for example, Berlant is her makeup artist). The film is directed by Aidan Zamiri, one of Charli’s closest collaborators from her days on Brat, who directed her music videos such as “360.”
“That ‘Brat’ was one of her most successful films to date, and what a cool and challenging film it was. I felt like it was a true expression of her,” Zamiri told Variety in a pre-festival interview. “And it’s interesting to see something like that become so globally popular, mass-consumed, and commercially produced under different brands.”
Elsewhere in the interview at Sundance, Charlie was asked by Variety’s Matt Donnelly about this week’s Oscar nominations. Charlie is an outspoken movie buff whose reviews on Letterboxd are often shared on social media platforms such as X.
“I haven’t seen the nominations. I don’t know! I don’t know anything,” Charlie admitted, but was surprised to learn that Ariana Grande lost out on Best Supporting Actress for Wicked: For Good. Grande and Charli collaborated on “Sympathy Is a Knife,” a remix of Charli’s “Brat and It’s Completely Different but also Still Brat.”
“Oh, Ari! She’s great,” Charlie said. “She gives it her all. We literally don’t know who’s going to get nominated or not, but it’s a surprise to me that she didn’t get nominated.”
The Moment will be released in theaters on January 30th after its Sundance premiere.
