Kristoffer Borgli's "The Drama" begins like a romantic comedy that has been seen before. Charlie (Robert Pattinson) notices Emma (Zendaya) reading a book in a coffee shop and wants to find a way to talk to her because he is immediately drawn to her. When she leaves her seat, he gets up to quickly see what book she's reading so he can do a quick search on the book and pretend he's read it too. A classic movie meet-cute, if there was ever one.
It doesn't take long into "The Drama" for initial perceptions to come to a screeching halt. Shortly after Charlie and Emma's first meeting in that coffee shop, the movie zips forward to the week leading up to their wedding. They are drinking wine and tasting food with their friends Mike (Mamoudou Athie) and Rachel (Alana Haim), when the wine starts doing a lot of the talking and the pair of couples go around and share the worst thing they have ever done. Emma's wine-fueled confession stops everyone in their tracks and the titular drama is revealed.
It's impossible to talk about "The Drama" and why the movie doesn't work without getting into the script's specificities, so it's important to go into the movie not knowing anything but prepared for one of the most irresponsibly marketed movies in quite some time. Perhaps, the irresponsible marketing is all part of the ploy to gain big reactions from the movie's audiences.
That's what's so frustrating about "The Drama" as a whole: there are glimpses of something interesting but the movie feels like empty provocation, simply crafted by Borgli to shock moviegoers. Shock and awe can be effective, but when a movie is marketed one way and then tries to be a grand statement of How We Live Now without ever diving deep into any of the topics, it feels like its shock is a mere plot device.
If you look closely and perhaps even squint real hard, it's not impossible to see what "The Drama" may have been going for in terms of shifting perceptions of partners. But, that might be giving Borgli too much credit in his sloppy execution. If he was aiming for commentary, he misses the mark; if he wanted to take a sledgehammer to the prototypical romantic comedy then it makes the entire screenplay even more distasteful.
Pattinson and Zendaya have an easy chemistry together as two of the most sought-after actors of their generation. Their performances require them to do all the heavy lifting of Borgli's screenplay, which just sets them up to navigate the tricky tonal changes of the story. It's just a shame their director left them entirely stranded for the entire duration of the movie.
| Movie title | The Drama |
|---|---|
| Release year | 2026 |
| MPAA Rating | R |
| Our rating | |
| Summary | This one starts as a romantic comedy, then initial perceptions come to a screeching halt. It may have been going for something profound but winds up feeling like empty provocation. |
