The Drama

(Editor’s Note: This review discusses major plot points in The Drama. Read it after you see the movie, which you definitely should do, to avoid spoilers.)

Norwegian filmmaker Kristoffer Borgli has now made two films with A24 about people judged harshly for their entirely conceptual crimes. The first was 2023’s Dream Scenario, a surreal comedy starring Nicolas Cage as a pathetic professor who, for reasons unexplained, begins appearing in random people’s dreams all over the world. When these unconscious cameos morph into disturbing nightmares, he’s irrationally blamed for the phenomenon and made a pariah. In his new feature, The Drama, Borgli tells the story of Emma (Zendaya) and Charlie (Robert Pattinson, using his real British voice onscreen for the first time in years), an attractive Boston couple soon to be married. While at a wine tasting with their maid of honor, Rachel (Alana Haim), and best man, Mike (Mamodou Athie), to finalize the reception menu, Rachel encourages everyone to tipsily share their stories about the worst thing they’ve ever done. When they do, each of their stories is awful to varying degrees, but Emma’s crosses a line for the others at the table.  

Some critics have called Emma’s share a “twist,” and then censured the film for using the subject so glibly. But the reveal is less a gotcha than the film’s premise, preserved for shock value. Emma confesses that, when she was 15, she had planned but did not carry out a school shooting. Rachel has a cousin who was paralyzed in one such shooting, so she’s incensed at the notion. Mike, the mediator, seems more willing to accept Emma’s reasoning that she was a troubled teen and has since moved beyond her adolescent anger. Charlie laughs with a nebbish awkwardness, shrinking away as he struggles to process what’s happening. He loves Emma, of course. But his inner debate about whether he can forgive her, whether he should go through with the wedding, and whether he even really knows her, overwhelms him. The hook serves as a provocative device to explore the limits of judgment and forgiveness in relationships, and to question how far our empathy can extend. 

The film’s pleasant opening scenes establish Emma and Charlie as a charming couple. Zendaya and Pattinson have immediate chemistry; watching them onscreen together is a delight. She loves that he’s a “weird little British freak” who, when they first meet, pretends to have read the book she’s reading so he can spark a conversation. He loves that she has a sort of “repulsive” laugh and pantses him when he’s getting too serious. And yes, they have great sex. Despite all this, the film’s setup reminded me of those many Seinfeld episodes in which Jerry questions his relationship because of some minor quirk. Though, obviously, this is a bigger issue than dating someone who calls you “schmoopie” too often or eats peas one at a time. Charlie’s doubts consume him. One of the funniest scenes finds him distracted at their wedding photographer’s studio. Played by Zoë Winters, the photographer keeps using the word “shoot” instead of “snap” or “take a picture.” Then she attempts to get Charlie to “just smile naturally.” Preoccupied, he can’t make his smile look genuine. “Natural smile,” she reminds him. “Just smile like you would… in life.”

Just as in Dream Scenario, Borgli’s approach to The Drama dabbles in neuroses and Freudian imagery to capture the protagonist’s maddened state. Charlie’s unconscious mind conjures images of Emma holding a rifle in their wedding photos, a wedding-day shooting, and himself walking with Emma as her angrier, 15-year-old self, played by Jordyn Curet. These thoughts horrify him. It’s frustrating because his reaction might not even have been so strong had Rachel not made a whole production of it. Haim is excellent in her self-righteous fury, though Rachel is no saint. Her “worst thing” is arguably worse and goes beyond a depressed teen’s What If? into a genuinely cruel act. Charlie dismissively shares his story about how he cyber-bullied someone until their family left town. Regardless, Rachel (who would probably vote “Yes” for PreCrime) takes the high-handed approach and wags her sanctimonious finger at Emma. Although Borgli doesn’t address race in the film, it’s worth noting that the two white characters pass judgment the most, and yet they’re the ones who actually acted out awful behaviors. 

Shot by cinematographer Arseni Khachaturan (Bones and All, 2023), the film’s natural lighting and bright wedding-day color scheme look elegant, even gorgeous, but the visuals shift into borderline horror when Charlie daydreams about blood streaming out of Emma’s one deaf ear or imagines her doing something awful. Editor Joshua Raymond Lee employs abrupt edges and jump cuts to visualize the film’s sudden tonal shifts, often cutting to these morbid reveries without warning. Best of all, despite the heavy subject matter and the filmmaker’s clear intent to make his audience uncomfortable, Borgli delivers a steady procession of laughs, including a hilarious subplot about their DJ(s), followed by Emma’s hypocrisy and lack of self-awareness about judging others for perceived crimes. 

Somewhat predictably, the film’s climax arrives at the wedding reception, culminating in squirm-inducingly awkward toasts and exposed secrets. This leads to an ending that proves kind of sweet, despite the acidity of everything that came before. Borgli doesn’t quite reach the bleak commentary on modern love that Yorgos Lanthimos did in the finale of The Lobster (2015). However, he ponders whether true love means “radical acceptance,” or if that’s toxic behavior. The Drama is the kind of film that will prompt debates about how far loyalty and empathy extend, and whether you could look beyond what Emma thought about doing as a maladjusted teen whose brain wasn’t even fully formed yet. Borgli, too, has received some criticism for his thoughts and actions, from his vocal support for Woody Allen to his admission that, in his twenties, he dated a 16-year-old who, under Norwegian law, was technical of age. These extratextual factors might sneak into discussions about The Drama in ways that could make viewers uncomfortable, if the content-warning-worthy topic of school shootings hadn’t already done so. 

Borgli isn’t interested in interrogating gun fetishism or the widespread problem of gun violence in the United States, though Charlie mentions how our culture has practically normalized school shootings (and since 2020, firearms remain the leading cause of death among young people in the US). That’s not the issue. It seems to me that The Drama is about whether you love the actual person or the person you think they are, and whether social pressure from the world outside of your relationship should have any bearing on your feelings toward your partner. Should we judge someone for what they might’ve done or for what they actually did? This kind of moral complexity doesn’t come with an entrenched depth of character, but Zendaya and Pattinson give such nuanced and riotous performances, each teeming with anxiety and terror over their exposure, that I found it impossible not to enjoy even its edgiest and most mortifying scenes.