Maybe you’ve noticed that people are already a little crazy over “The Drama,” the upcoming film starring Zendaya and Robert Pattinson (in theaters April 3). On the one hand, this is due to the breathlessly high expectations: the “Euphoria” megastar and the former “Twilight” poster boy, who has blossomed into the perfect screen oddball in what sounds like an old-fashioned romantic comedy on paper. Boy meets girl. Boy proposes. Girl says yes. Everything escalates before the wedding. That’s a technically correct description of the plot – but it hits the mood by about a million light years. One can only assume that viewers hoping for feel-good cinema missed the film’s early teaser, which suggested that this couple’s ship was sailing in stormy waters from the start. Perhaps the same viewers had forgotten that both studio A24 and producer Ari Aster were responsible for the light romantic comedy “Midsommar”.
And on the other hand, it’s because of a bomb that is set off – a “twist” that pushes “The Drama” in a direction that many did not expect. When we meet Charlie (Pattinson) and Emma (Zendaya), he embarrasses himself by approaching them in a café. He spots a novel she’s reading and quickly googles its contents, pretending it’s his favorite book. She is deaf in one ear and has an earplug in the other – his pathetic attempts at literary refinement are simply lost. This is her version of a meet-cute, the kind of awkward anecdote that works as a sweet relationship footnote at a wedding speech. The two fight over who can use them in their speech. You yourself cringe at the sheer stalker energy.
Later, while testing food and wine for the reception, the couple and their married friends Mike (Mamoudou Athie) and Rachel (Alana Haim) decide to play a game. It’s about one question: What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done? Mike’s story is about an ex-girlfriend, a dog and a bad night. Rachel’s answer revolves around an atrocity from her youth. Charlie mumbles something about cyberbullying – about as convincing as his declaration of love for the book he’s never read. Then, perhaps because she doesn’t want to sound as evasive as her fiancé, or perhaps because the wine has been flowing all night, Emma tells her worst thing. Let’s put it this way: When it comes to “worst,” she wins the game hands down.
The turning point of the film
This unfortunate moment of all-too-honest revelation changes how everyone in the room sees her—and how everyone in the theater sees the film. It is the point of no return for the characters and, for many who have seen “The Drama” beforehand, the moment at which he loses them. We’re in new territory, and the rest of this “comedy” jettisons the romantic in favor of outright cringe. The friendship between the two couples is strained, to say the least. Charlie begins to see Emma differently; the film keeps flashing into his mind, where he doesn’t see the person she is, but the person he believes she is was. Emma withdraws and falls into old patterns. Charlie’s co-worker Misha (Hailey Gates) also gets dragged into the mess. One wonders if this is all still in good taste – whatever that phrase means in 2026 – or if the sudden introduction of a theme far, far bigger than the film itself isn’t just shock value masquerading as shock therapy.
How you answer that last question will determine whether you view “The Drama” as gutsy or as cow dung in a crystal punchbowl. Norwegian director Kristoffer Borgli has ventured into such danger zones before. He is best known for “Dream Scenario” (2023), which served as a pressure valve for Nicolas Cage in terms of meme celebrity – but his feature film debut “Sick of Myself” (2022) similarly balanced on the fine line between food for thought and provocation with its dark swipes at attention seekers in the age of the attention economy. (The fact that this film used the same social theme central to “The Drama” as a punchline in a subplot makes you think: You could have seen this coming.) Behind all the provocation lurks a quiet chuckle that, thankfully, never veers into full 4chan territory. But the fact that so much depends on poking into a wound doesn’t automatically make the whole thing something bold in the sense of breaking a real taboo. It’s the kind of film that thinks it’s too edgy to be suitable for the masses – and it’s not nearly as edgy as it thinks.
None of this matters when you watch Pattinson and Zendaya happily dance through the film’s minefields and throw themselves with verve into the uncomfortable, sweaty aspects of the story. We’re so used to seeing Pattinson turn left where other matinee idols would turn right that even his supposedly “normal” characters have come to seem strange in a fundamental way. You get the feeling that it doesn’t take much to make his mildly quirky Charlie fall apart – which makes his reactions to the narrative seismic moment seem both apt and typical of him. It is a portrait of a person who already feels uncomfortable in his own skin and is now trying not to break completely. And while it’s hard to say whether this is Zendaya’s best work in a filmography that also includes “Challengers,” it’s easy to say: With the possible exception of Rue from “Euphoria,” this is the role that gives her the most room to grow. She must navigate neediness, regret, rejection, anger, pain, righteousness, and forgiveness—for others and for herself—and pirouettes past each of these points like a pro.
The wedding as an afterthought
Eventually we’ll get to the big day, and it’s no spoiler to say it’s not a dream scenario. (Both Pattinson and Haim are now permanently out of the running for future real-life wedding speeches.) But the wedding is just an afterthought, the icing on an already ruined three-layer cake. That’s not what “The Drama” is essentially about. What’s really at stake is not the revelation itself, but how someone deals with such information. And how certain topics are not only impossible to understand, but equally impossible to discuss in a way that does justice to the full complexity of human experience. And how adolescent alienation remains misunderstood, how so many tragedies never rise above the status of sensational headlines—and how we never truly know our partners, much less ourselves.
At least, those are the things the film makes us believe want, that he treats her. It is difficult to say whether the end result really gets there or is content to remain at the gate of social issue exploitation. Right from the start, the couple and their friends watch their wedding DJ on the street smoking what looks like heroin. Should they fire her? It’s just drugs, says one and shrugs his shoulders. It’s not “just drugs,” the other replies, it’s heroin. How far do you have to go to cross the line of “too far”? “The Drama” wants to be that question. He tries to go “too far” so that the audience questions their own assessment of such boundaries. The actual drama shouldn’t take place on the screen. Which, we guess, given the outcry leading up to its release, means that the film is a success – no matter how many people end up buying a movie ticket.
