Should she be starring on All’s Fair?
Photo: A24
In the middle of Charli XCX’s new mockumentary The Moment, the pop star gets so stressed out from planning her Brat tour that she abandons her team for a retreat in Ibiza. While there she gets a terrible facial treatment, then wanders the halls of her resort where she ends up bumping into Kylie Jenner. What follows is, by a good measure, the best scene in the movie. Kylie Jenner, it turns out, has legitimate chops as a comic actress. Nobody tell Kim.
In their scene, Charli and Jenner have a brief conversation about fame and how to navigate the ever-shifting power dynamics of celebrity. Charli’s on the rise, and, Jenner reveals, accidentally just stole a director away from the Kardashian family member. The subsequent discussion is peppered with some of the movie’s slickest punchlines, which Jenner delivers naturally. As the interaction continues, her eyes narrow and she becomes increasingly passive aggressive toward the newly-successful Charli, humble bragging about her kids and career as Charli, already mid-existential crisis, spirals further and further. “The second that people are getting sick of you,” Jenner cautions, completely straight-faced, “that’s when you have to go even harder.”
It’s a gamble to give a green actor like Jenner this pivotal of a scene. In the immediate aftermath of their conversation, Charli completely crashes out in ways that I won’t spoil here. But what matters is that we believe that Jenner’s subtle jabs are enough to finally trigger Charli’s collapse. Charli, in a remarkably unselfconscious performance for a pop star, is totally bereft of makeup in the scene. Jenner, meanwhile, is a vision. But even as she stuns physically, it’s her willingness to parody her own perceived vapidity that truly shines. “You look amazing,” she tells a clearly destroyed Charli, before clarifying that she meant Charli looked beautiful “on the inside.”
The expertly-executed scene comes in the wake of Kim Kardashian’s performance on Ryan Murphy’s All’s Fair. Whereas her sister exerts maximal effort delivering dialogue in the Murphy drama, Jenner seemingly handles an onscreen tête-à-tête with loads of potential minefields without breaking a sweat. She is never too knowing, playing this version of herself without a hint of irony, even as she delivers clearly ridiculous lines. In a movie packed with cameos, Jenner’s scene lives up to comedic heavy hitters like Kate Berlant and Rachel Sennott’s work.
At the end of the credits for The Moment, the movie thanks a number of people including Jenner’s partner-in-orange, Timothée Chalamet. It makes you wonder what, exactly, the three-time Oscar nominee did to assist. (Coaching?) Either way, this power couple is starting to make sense. Tell your hot GF to star in a comedy soon, Timmy. Or at least put her in some of your promo videos.
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