In the satirical mockumentary titled The Moment, Charli XCX grapples with the end of Brat summer—a cultural phenomenon that significantly contributed to the success of her sixth album. The film, featuring Charli as a fictionalized version of herself, struggles to effectively deliver humor surrounding her crisis of identity and ultimately falls short of capturing the exhilarating essence of her 2024 album. After watching The Moment following its tepid reception at the Sundance Film Festival, I detected a sense of something fading—not Brat, but rather the mockumentary style itself.
What has led to the weariness of mockumentaries? Once a fresh narrative approach skillfully utilized by directors like Christopher Guest and the late Rob Reiner, the mockumentary format now feels almost as stale as the conventional films it seeks to parody. This decline is disheartening. For decades, faux-documentary filmmaking thrived, driven by the creative minds of numerous comedic legends, including Eric Idle of Monty Python, who satirized Beatlemania in the 1978 mockumentary The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash, and Albert Brooks, who made his directorial debut with the 1979 reality television spoof Real Life.
In 1984, Reiner infused an improvisational spirit into the heavy-metal satire This Is Spinal Tap, a film that amplified comic creativity and made a fictional band of hapless musicians seem more genuine than their real-life MTV equivalents. Its impact remains strong; the success of Spinal Tap opened the door for Guest’s own series of beloved mockumentary classics, including Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, and A Mighty Wind. These films are cherished for their eccentric characters, improvised dialogue, and ensemble casting, where the mockumentary format lends a sense of authenticity to characters that are simultaneously absurd and relatable.
Regrettably, Guest has not directed a film in a decade, and the recent mockumentaries fail to reach the lasting appeal of his works. This includes Spinal Tap II: The End Continues (featuring Guest), which I hesitate to criticize due to some genuinely funny moments, such as a sleazy music promoter who struggles to understand music. However, its release was marred by the tragic murder of Reiner in December. Although Spinal Tap II humorously critiques the aging reunion phenomenon of iconic bands, it also carries a sense of nostalgia, striving to recapture the charm of the original film.
The stagnation of the mockumentary genre reflects a broader decline in documentary filmmaking, where celebrity-focused projects often resemble more of an attempt at legacy building rather than genuine storytelling. Similar to many superficial showbiz documentaries, both Spinal Tap II and The Moment confuse high-profile celebrity appearances for substantive content. With its candid shots of Charli navigating label meetings, tour rehearsals, and fan interactions, The Moment superficially mimics the behind-the-scenes documentaries produced by its subjects, yet its satire lacks sharpness and direction. A successful mockumentary should critique its subjects, as seen in the 2016 film Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, which expertly satirized self-absorbed pop stars. However, The Moment offers a muddled view of Charli and reserves its most pointed critiques for a pompous director, played by Alexander Skarsgård, who aims to sanitize her public persona for a family-friendly concert film.
In this climate of excessively flattering celebrity documentaries, the new NBC sitcom The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins emerges as a potential critique. This show features a cleverly meta premise, functioning as both a documentary-style narrative and a commentary on the documentary-making process. Tracy Morgan stars as a down-and-out former NFL player who hires an Oscar-winning filmmaker, Arthur Tobin (Daniel Radcliffe), to help revitalize his image. The catch is that Tobin aspires to create an authentic film rather than a mere promotional piece for Dinkins.
However, The Fall and Rise struggles to convincingly present itself as a product of Tobin’s filmmaking; the show feels overly artificial. Created by veterans from 30 Rock, it is filled with witty one-liners and quick punchlines, a stylistic choice that clashes with its aspirations for mockumentary realism. While it may showcase Morgan’s comedic talents, it lacks the spontaneity and chemistry that characterize a great mockumentary.
Even more troubling, right-wing podcaster Matt Walsh diluted the genre in 2024 with his subpar mockumentary Am I Racist?, a misguided attempt at provocation. In this film, Walsh undergoes a DEI certification process, attends antiracist workshops, and adopts a self-righteous persona, resulting in a feature-length film that resembles a provocative social media post. Although he manages to pull off an amusing prank on bestselling author Robin DiAngelo, persuading her to pay $30 in reparations, he often strays from the documentary format, interspersing scripted scenes that detract from any genuine exploration of the subject. His focus appears less on presenting new insights and more on affirming preconceived notions, particularly the belief that racism is a liberal fabrication.
Yet, there remains a glimmer of hope for the mockumentary genre in smaller, independent projects like Rap World (2024) and Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie (2026). The former, directed by Conner O’Malley and Danny Scharar, portrays four friends creating a rap album in suburban Pennsylvania during the late 2000s, encapsulating the era’s DIY aesthetic with remarkable accuracy. The latter, a quirky buddy comedy based on the web series Nirvanna the Band the Show, employs inventive camera techniques and “real” footage of the interactions between Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol, showcasing the potential for fresh and engaging storytelling within the mockumentary format.
