'Alone Together' finds Charli XCX at her most vulnerable | SXSW

Alone Together follows musician Charli XCX as she writes and records her album how i’m feeling now while under lockdown during the coronavirus pandemic

While working through the writing, producing, and release of her album how I’m feeling now, Charli XCX explores creativity, self-doubt, and connection in the age of the pandemic to great and surprisingly poignant effect in Alone Together.

Music documentaries that follow an artist’s creative process — Lady Gaga’s Five Foot Six or Taylor Swift’s Miss Americana come to mind — are meant to drive (or combat) a narrative that is put onto them. But with an almost blank slate to write in for her public persona, Charli XCX is able to do something completely unheard of: be herself.

Despite her mainstream success with singles like “Fancy” and “Boom Clap,” Charli XCX has become somewhat of an underground sensation. You can’t walk into a gay club without at least one of her tracks bumping out of the speakers. In letting go of her preconceived notions of success, Charli has found exactly that. She was on a roll in 2019 and early 2020 after a well-received fourth studio album sent her across the world on tour for thousands of fans. Full disclosure: I was one of those fans in New York.

However, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, like everyone else she was under lockdown in her home in Los Angeles. When the film begins, she already made the decision to do the impossible: write, record, and release her fourth album in under five weeks. The album would be called how i’m feeling now and she commits to capturing the entire process along with her two managers and boyfriend Huck.

What makes Alone Together such a successful documentary is that it isn’t trying to capture Charli’s career as a whole or explain the essence of who she is off the stage as Charlotte Emma Aitchison is. The film captures a specific moment of time and all the very raw and intimate feelings she encountered during it. From her self-hatred and doubt to her trepidation about the future of her relationship and frustrations during the creative process.

Though there are moments that feel too Gen Z to be genuine, the end result is powerful and profound because Charli anchors the whole film in her psyche. You come away knowing more about the musician, but more importantly you see her doing what we all have been doing this year: finding ways to cope. In that case, Alone Together is a more than apt title.

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Hey! I’m Karl. You can find me on Twitter here. I’m also a Tomatometer-approved critic.

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Karl Delossantos

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Hey, I'm Karl, founder and film critic at Smash Cut. I started Smash Cut in 2014 to share my love of movies and give a perspective I haven't yet seen represented. I'm also an editor at The New York Times, a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, and a member of the Online Film Critics Society.