Worth: $10.50
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Cast:
Charli XCX
Intro:
Taken for what it is, a love letter to the fans, Charli’s story is surprisingly sweet and moving at times, a pleasantly unique approach to producing and promoting an album.
In 2019, Charli XCX was touring the world, her eponymous album Charli climbing the charts and taking over the airwaves. Fast forward to May of 2020 and Charli XCX, like the majority of the world’s population thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic, was locked down at home, listless, lonely, and bored.
Refusing to sit back and accept this fate, the popstar set herself a challenge: 5 weeks, 10 songs, 1 brand new album. From concept to public release, a process that could take up to a year of work with a full team of support, Charli was determined to speedrun down to 40 days with just her core team of managers, producers and her die-hard fans known as “Charli’s Angels”. As Charli put it in her call to arms — “a new climate, a new way of creating”.
This behind-the-scenes documentary follows the creation of the How I’m Feeling Now album. Mirroring the album’s more personal, impromptu feel, the film is far from studio polished. There are 3 cameras following Charli at all times, 2 manned by her housemates and managers, unseen except for the occasional wave to camera from the periphery, and one operated by Charli herself.
Far from the glitz and glamour of your regular behind-the-music doco, Alone Together has something of a confessional feel. This isn’t Charli pushing a brand or self-promoting, much of her screentime is spent reflecting on her shortcomings or perceived flaws. It’s a space for her to escape to when the realities of life in lockdown become too real, a space she willingly opens up to her fans.
An emotional project as much as an artistic one, Charli XCX took what was literally a period of isolation and turned it into an opportunity to forge connections and create. “Charli’s Angels”, her largely LGBTQIA fanbase, were invited to contribute lyrics, film clips and art to the project, a request that could easily become exploitative and yet feels like a genuine attempt to engage and support the people who have in turn supported Charli from the beginning. The documentary takes care to include the POV of the Angels: footage from Zoom calls shared with Charli and livestreams where fans were treated to early demos are woven in between Charli’s direct to camera confessionals and snippets of her writing process as the album comes into being before our eyes.
Like any social media project, especially one self-edited by the subject, the film only shows as much as Charli is willing to share. There’s not a lot of substance behind the lo-fi style, but the film never promised to be a deep-dive into the artistic psyche. Taken for what it is, a love letter to the fans, Charli’s story is surprisingly sweet and moving at times, a pleasantly unique approach to producing and promoting an album.
