A24’s The Moment: Charli XCX Baffles Fans With Mysterious New Trailer
The marketing for “The Moment,” the upcoming drama about the glitz-obscured underbelly of celebrity, is really taking shape now. Since it’s an A24 film, you know it must have a real arthouse quality to it, and ever since it was first teased back in October, it’s been clear that its makers and advertisers want it to look unique to the point of weirdness. Its latest teaser, which naturally reveals more (but still not very much) about the film than its predecessor, also places greater but artfully subtle emphasis on the darkness of its story.
Pop Singer Charli XCX as a Troubled Pop Singer
“The Moment” stars Charli XCX, a British pop singer-songwriter who has made her acting debut (not counting documentary films and voice-acting for animated films) in three movies this year: the action-adventure comedy “Sacrifice,” the period romance “100 Nights a Hero,” and the drama “Erupcja.” She is also a co-producer and was responsible for the original idea on which the film is based. It is a mockumentary drama in which XCX plays a pop star who experiences all the intense highs and lows of her newfound fame as she prepares for her first headlining tour.
The First Teaser: A Gloriously Disorienting Instagram Post
The first teaser for “The Moment,” which came out on October 9, was an almost one-minute post on XCX’s Instagram. It consisted of the credits for the movie, presented in rapidly strobe-flashing text scored to Icona Pop’s “I Love It” and concluding with the text: “I just want this moment to last forever.” It provided a very clever facsimile of a pop celebrity’s stereotypical mindset: self-centered and bursting with delirious, enervating euphoria. It effectively captured the excitement and allure of its subject matter, while being just off-putting enough to hint at what lies beneath all the glamor.
The Latest Teaser: More Gritty, Just as Glitzy, and Just as Strobe-Filled
The new teaser, a one-and-a-half-minute video that dropped on YouTube on November 20, has a starkly different but equally effective way of conveying the same theme. This trailer contains plenty of clips from the movie, showcasing its slightly low-resolution mockumentary style.
This low-res quality is ingenious for how it juxtaposes the inherently glamorous scenes of “The Moment” with a tone of gritty authenticity. As XCX’s character (who seems essentially to be XCX herself, given a reference in the teaser to her 2024 album “Brat,”) poses before a mirror, chats backstage with a friend, and heads into a Late Show interview wherein Stephen Colbert asks her, “How does it feel to have claimed the whole summer?” this format subliminally grounds the setting, dispelling any perception that we’ll be watching a sublime fantasy of this pop star’s life.
The credits for “The Moment” are presented in the same way as in the Instagram post: in gaudy, flashing-strobe-light letters from which those with sensitivities must take care to avert their eyes. Unlike the previous teaser, this trailer doesn’t have the grace to begin with a “COULD CAUSE SEIZURES” warning.
A Celebrity Neophyte, Soon Facing Potential Crash-and-Burn
It’s clear that XCX’s onscreen self is new to the world of fame. As the Late Show’s studio audience applauds her, she says, “Wow!” in a tone like that of an astonished, grateful child. Her response to Colbert’s aforementioned query is: “Yeah, I mean… It just kinda happened.” “I’ve built this tour up to be this massive thing,” she remarks elsewhere.
A little over 30 seconds into the trailer, the massiveness of said tour starts to upturn fame’s dark underbelly. We see the pressure put on her by her fans, including one slightly imposing stan who tells her, “You saved my life,” and hands her a drawing that he made of her. We hear her explain: “When I felt like people started to care about me, nothing else mattered.” Immediately thereafter, a friend of hers must reassure her that “you’re not gonna die after an album cycle.” “I might,” she replies.
The apotheosis of this theme is a symbolic clip wherein a rather fancily dressed-up mannequin is accidentally dropped from high up in a studio and breaks apart on impact with the concrete floor. “Is that me?” XCX demands. “That’s supposed to be you, yeah,” someone answers.
On January 30, audiences can find out whether this up-and-coming pop star will emerge from her personal crisis unbroken.
