Editor’s Note: This review contains major spoilers.
“The Drama,” starring Zendaya and Robert Pattinson, cordially invites viewers to a film that arrives with a mysterious premise. Audiences are only given a brief synopsis, accompanied with elegant marketing from A24 and the promise of an interesting watch due to the star power of the titular cast. The film begins with stylistic confidence that quickly gives way to a frustrating piece that fails to deliver on the weight of its subject matter.
Directed by Kristoffer Borgli (“Dream Scenario”), the film follows Emma, played by Zendaya, and Charlie, played by Pattinson, in the week leading up to their wedding. For the young couple in love, all seems normal, going about their last few wedding planning tasks. This tranquility is upended when Emma reveals she planned and almost carried out a school shooting when she was in high school.
The eponymous “drama” of Emma’s past is revealed less than 30 minutes into the film, but not before Borgli fast-tracks us through Charlie and Emma’s relationship. Rather than allowing the couple’s chemistry to be shown organically on-screen, the film relies on a montage of flashbacks to key moments in their relationship, including the meet-cute, first date and first kiss. While this structure efficiently establishes their history, it feels like a lazy shortcut that assumes a limited audience attention span. As a result, their relationship becomes a pairing we understand in theory but don’t feel intimately.
Despite the film’s lack of investment in its key relationship, both Zendaya and Pattinson provide incredibly natural performances. Conversations between characters are a notable strength of the film, with dialogue being realistically messy with overlap. Zendaya captures the quiet unraveling of Emma as she tries to maintain control while her world collapses. Pattinson portrays Charlie with an increasing level of anxiety and paranoia as the film progresses. Because the performances are so realistic, the audience’s discomfort is heightened.
This discomfort becomes the film’s defining feature. The couple’s wedding looms over their heads, the tension escalating to near-intolerability. Charlie’s inability to confront Emma over her past actions coupled with Emma’s unwillingness to speak about it pushes the film’s breaking point to the day of the wedding. Scenes stretch with awkwardness, eliciting squirmish reactions and dread for the couple’s special day.
The film’s major faltering stands as its handling (or dismissal) of the very issue it centers around. The “drama,” tied to a sensitive and ever-present topic in America, constitutes exploration within the film, but the topic is explored only superficially. Rather than engaging deeply with the implications of Emma’s actions, the film chooses to gloss over them by suggesting the couple can simply “start over” at the end of the film.
“The Drama” dazzles with its performance and presentation, but fails where commitment matters most. Borgli’s inability to address the film’s subject and treating it the same as he does the rest of the film’s jokes transforms what could’ve been a dialogue on a serious and topical issue into a trite ending and a waste of talent.
2 “I do’s” out of 5
