Brat Summer, with its now-iconic neon green, was everywhere all at once, a rocket ship to stardom that The Moment recaps via news montage for anyone unfamiliar. Once fans and outsiders alike are up to speed, numerous cameras follow XCX and her entourage in close quarters in the weeks leading up to her Brat tour in 2025, and the fictionalized creative skirmishes therein. It\u2019s a mockumentary only in the most technical sense; i.e., its characters acknowledge the cameras once or twice. However, the film is much better served if thought of as a straightforward drama shot with a handheld, voyeuristic gaze, or else you might go mad trying to figure out the logistics of each camera\u2019s placement, and the \u201chow\u201d and \u201cwhy\u201d of it all (to say nothing of its lack of sit-down interviews). Either way, its raison d’etre is farcical at first, which is when the film is at its strongest. When it pivots towards more saccharine themes, told through traditional melodrama in its closing act, it\u2019s much harder to stomach.<\/p>\n
Early into the 103-minute runtime, it\u2019s hard to shake the sense that Zamiri and XCX might be fans of the Safdie Brothers and Enter The Void director Gaspar No\u00e9, whose respective claustrophobic conversations and strobing on-screen captions<\/a> are deployed as primary tools. The movie\u2019s texture is unrelenting, though its content seldom lives up. It takes a while for its awkward rhythms to finally settle, but after the umpteenth montage that establishes \u2013 or rather re-establishes \u2013 the premise, we\u2019re off to the races. Boardroom executives make decisions on XCX\u2019s behalf without her input, while her hilariously straitlaced manager Tim (Jamie Demetriou) tries to talk her into harebrained promotional schemes, including a ripped-from-Twitter gag about a Brat-themed queer credit card<\/a>. It\u2019s all wonderfully silly, and it comes wrapped in the chaos of XCX being ushered between events around London practically against her will.<\/p>\n The dry humor \u00e0 la The Office (the UK original, that is) serves Zamiri\u2019s style to a tee, while XCX slips effortlessly into a frayed and haggard version of herself, bringing her inmost insecurities to the surface amidst scenes of partying through the night. It\u2019s a wonderful performance showcase at times, granting dramatic detours to supporting characters like XCX\u2019s friend and creative director, Celeste (Safdie regular Hailey Benton Gates), whose nightclub vision for the tour is challenged by the ludicrous, faux-polite concert film director, Johannes (Alexander Skarsg\u00e5rd). A label hire, Johannes is hell-bent on sanding down the pop star\u2019s image, making it more colorful and family-friendly, which leads to some comical butting of heads.<\/p>\n XCX slips effortlessly into a frayed and haggard version of herself, bringing her inmost insecurities to the surface.\u201c<\/p>\n Celebrities show up in spades \u2013 Kylie Jenner and Rachel Sennott play exaggerated versions of themselves \u2013 so the verisimilitude of the project is never in question. Unfortunately, what remains questionable is its artistic point of view. In a sea of caricatures, XCX is practically the only three-dimensional human being, a person battling for agency while fighting off hordes of idiots at every turn. It verges on misanthropic, especially when she actually meets her fans; the mental health struggles of one of them are made the butt of an especially cruel joke. On the one hand, it\u2019s commendable to see XCX \u2013 on whose idea the film was based \u2013 let the air out of her own celebrity image in the form of cinema; on the other hand, the result often feels like a distasteful act of brand management, despite its insistence that beneath all the glitz and glamor, XCX is ultimately human. She\u2019s not too human, though; don\u2019t forget, she\u2019s still a creative genius, as The Moment insists, so any compromises she makes in a state of distress are secretly a five-dimensional chess scheme. If you can get on board with that conclusion, great; you\u2019ve drunk the lime green Kool-Aid.<\/p>\n Zamiri\u2019s visual approach may be a patchwork of other filmmakers, but in the most superficial sense, he knows exactly who to pull from, even if it doesn\u2019t always cohere. The movie\u2019s use of color is also remarkable, from the intense high-contrast and saturated palette that gives even the most luxurious spaces a grungy sensation, to the use of green in the color timing to induce a sickly feel as the film goes on, \u00e0 la The Matrix or a Saw sequel. It\u2019s as though XCX were being psychologically consumed, and even harmed, by her own success.<\/p>\n