‘Charli XCX: Alone Together’ Review: How to Make of an Impromptu Album in Quarantine
NR
Runtime: 1 Hr and 09 Minutes
Production Companies: Cottage, Dangerous Baby Productions, Snoot Entertainment
Distributor: Greenwich Entertainment
Director: Bradley Bell, Pablo Jones-Soler (aka Bradley & Pablo)
Cast: Charli XCX
Release Date: January 28, 2022
Charli XCX, a global pop phenomenon, was riding high when she had just finished an electric headline global tour in 2019. But despite her career success, she was personally unfulfilled, anxious, and her long-term-long-distance relationship was on the brink. Everything changes when the COVID-19 pandemic turns the world upside down. Lost in the early days of quarantine, Charli turns to music. She announces that she will attempt to make an album at home in 40 days by enlisting the help of her fans online while her boyfriend, Huck Kwong, moves in. The unique creative boundaries take Charli on a creative and emotional journey like no other, pushing her to the brink of disaster as she is forced to confront mental health issues, rekindle her relationship and connect with vulnerable LGBTQ+ fans in need.
What did I say about COVID movies? I’m done. I’ve been done. It’s so exhausting having to watch another COVID-related documentary as we reach the finish line of this pandemic! Oooh, Charli XCX made a documentary about the production of her album, which she completed in *checks notes* 5 weeks?! Okay, fine.
Fall 2019, Charli XCX was out and about. She had just dropped her self-titled album and was touring across the world on her Charli Live Tour. *Katara voice* That all changed when the coronavirus attacked. Like many musicians, Charli had to cancel her tour and go into quarantine… and like many creatives, she said, “Fuck it. I’ll be productive,” and started working on a project. Not just any project, but a whole album. Alone Together chronicles how — with the help of her two managers, her boyfriend, and her loving fanbase — she powered through to craft her album, How I’m Feeling Now, in the span of five weeks from home.
What gets you emotionally attached right off the bat is the love that Charli has for her fans. In documentaries about musicians, you rarely see them being close to their fanbase outside of exhibiting how big their popularity is. In Alone Together, directors Bradley and Pablo (who collaborated as the directors of her “2099” music video) display that her “Angel” fanbase played an intricate role in her process. You see her being vulnerable to her fans on stage during tours, pouring her heart out and expressing how grateful she is for them. So, when she had to cancel her tour, you see her connect with her fans to help her get this album made so they won’t feel utterly alone during the quarantine. They are more than her fans; they are her motivation, her inspiration, and even her collaborators. You see her have Zoom meetings and Instagram Lives with her “Angel” fanbase (some whose perspective you see in the film as they comment on how important she is to them), converse with them, and ask for their assistance in making this album. They even pitch ideas for impromptu music videos and complete lyrics with her. It’s a two-way relationship that makes the subject herself feel completely authentic. This is Charli being raw, honest, and vulnerable, which makes the doc feel intimate. It’s heartwarming to witness how the makings of this album were unlike anything anyone has done before because it was an honest group effort between an artist and her fans. I’m a sucker (hehe) for sweet shit like that.
Throughout the documentary, I saw myself connecting with Charli and her creative process. It made me feel validated as you see her have little spurts of creativity while cursing herself through roadblocks before progressing again. Same, Charli. Same. As bizarre as it is to say, quarantine gave Charli a chance to not only pace herself and her work but also patch the intimate relationships she cared about the most, like the relationship with her boyfriend Huck Kwong. An intimate aspect that made this doc emotionally compelling was seeing the reality of her romantic relationship with Huck. They express how much their relationship was affected by their lack of time together while she was touring. Because of the quarantine, they got to spend more time with each other than ever before, so seeing them reconnect is as sweet as it is real.
Despite the many COVID docs that I’ve seen throughout this decade-long year, this is the first one that actually discusses the importance of mental health and loneliness through quarantine. Yes, I’ve seen many narratives that chronicle the devastation that this pandemic has caused but none discuss just how mentally draining it is, especially for creatives and workaholics. Charli expresses those notions herself, primarily with how she shares each nook and cranny of making the album, from demos to a capella, with her audience and fans in order to spark creativity and positivity.
There’s not much else to say about the doc due to its short runtime, but the longer I spend away from it, the more aspects stick with me because of its raw honesty that many music docs and 2020 quarantine-related docs don’t have. It shows a musician’s honest and challenging process of making an impromptu album, trying to create a positive space with the people who look up to her in the midst of global devastation. Alone Together is a relatively short yet well-paced and well-crafted doc that is down-to-earth, just like the subject herself, and you too might walk away from it an “Angel” as well.
