For more than a decade, Charli existed in that peculiar pop-star hinterland: too influential to be obscure, too experimental to be fully mainstream, a hitmaker whose fingerprints were everywhere but whose name remained outside pop's inner sanctum.

Then came 'Brat', her sixth album, which detonated far beyond music. Its deliberately pedestrian cover, abrasive club-pop, confessional lyrics and aggressively lowercase aesthetic became a meme, a mood, a fashion statement and, eventually, a lifestyle.

"Brat summer" invaded social media and politics alike - "kamala (Harris) IS brat" became shorthand; Collins Dictionary crowned "brat" its 2024 Word of the Year. A record about jealousy, female friendship, insecurity and a whole lot of cocaine became the defining pop-cultural vocabulary of the year.

And that is where 'The Moment', a mockumentary conceived by Charli herself, begins.

Could you kill the best thing that has ever happened to you, because it became bigger than you? The answer, in 'The Moment', is apparently yes, if your record label has anything to do with it.

This deliciously raw, feral, drug-laced film asks what happens when a cult star is swallowed by her own phenomenon. It begins with, photosensitivity be damned, relentless strobing - and never really lets you breathe.

Charli plays herself, preparing for the 'Brat' tour while her label, Atlantic Records, attempts to stretch a spontaneous cultural eruption into an endless revenue stream. Cue humiliating sponcon: a "What's in My Bag?" video for Vogue in which she barely knows what is in her bag, while phone cases, Skims shapewear and glasses sit conspicuously ready for their close-up. Every real person and entity is named as-is.

There is nowhere to hide, not even behind the fourth wall.

Her yes-men buzz around her. Jamie Demetriou's manager Tim is wonderfully slippery; Rosanna Arquette's Atlantic executive wants every last drop. The only person guarding Charli's vision is creative director Celeste (Hailey Benton Gates, magnificent), as the men around her try to sanitise the club rat into something more palatable for a concert film directed by the punchable Johannes Godwin (Alexander Skarsgard).

The film's greatest triumph is its form. Shot through perpetual cigarette and vape smoke, it is exhausting by design. It looks less like a mockumentary than a panic attack with a production budget. Flashing graphics, real news footage and YouTube commentary bleed into restless camerawork and invasive close-ups. Every scene seems at loggerheads with the next, and you feel the pressure of keeping the money flowing and the "moment" alive.

Charli - who punctuates every dialogue with a "babe" in her classic Essex cadence - lets herself look insecure, vain, confused and ridiculous. Her stumbles sharpen the joke: the imperfect starlet is the premise.

Skarsgard is the film's most potent comedic weapon, dressed like a white man on a soul-searching journey in Rishikesh and playing mansplaining incarnate as he attempts to make 'Brat' glitterier and more palatable for Amazon, the studio bank-rolling the concert doc. Cameos by Rachel Sennott, Julia Fox and Kylie Jenner add fizz.

'The Moment' is truly raw and subversive - and, crucially, just fully enough.

Perhaps that is the joke. The woman who gave us 'Brat' has made a film about what happens when the party ends - and discovered that the comedown is considerably less fun.

'Brat' was a cultural explosion. 'The Moment' is the morning after: mascara smudged, phone buzzing, PR team panicking, everyone pretending they had a great time.