Review: THE DRAMA

 by Rob DiCristino

Love means constantly having to say you’re sorry.

It’s impossible to discuss The Drama without revealing its controversial central conceit. Don’t read ahead if you don’t want it spoiled.

On a recent podcast, I admitted that being Gone Girled by a romantic partner wouldn’t always be a dealbreaker for me. I wasn’t kidding. Honestly, I deserve to be Gone Girled, and if I’m being totally, completely, perhaps far too honest, the craft and dedication that this hypothetical partner would have to employ in order to Gone Girl me in the first place would only endear them to me all the more. Gone Girling requires skill. Creativity. The kind of pathological codependency almost guaranteed to drop my panties. You have to really love someone to fuck with them that much, you know? Right? Maybe you disagree. Look, this review isn’t about me or my crippling emotional damage; it’s about the fact that we all have our point of no return, a point known to mathematicians — okay, fine; mathematicians I’ve invented — as the “Still Would” Coordinate. Relationships are built on empathy and compromise, and we’ve all put up with things we would find unacceptable if they didn’t come in a sexy package. Up to a point. That point is the “Still Would” Coordinate. Get it?

Written and directed by Norwegian filmmaker Kristoffer Borgli — whose Dream Scenario was one of 2023’s more undersung curiosities — The Drama is a vibrant, hilarious, and deeply unsettling exploration of the “Still Would” Coordinate. We begin with a coffee shop meet-cute between museum curator Charlie (Robert Pattinson) and book store clerk Emma (Zendaya). She’s deaf in one ear. He’s pretending to have read the book in front of her. They’re both hot. You know where this is going. Mercifully, Borgli skips past the “getting to know you” stuff and brings us to the eve of their wedding, when Charlie is drafting his speech with his best pal, Mike (Mamoudou Athie). Which stories should make the cut? Which should be left out? Should he recount the passion of their cunnilingus? Probably not, right? Her dad’s going to be there. Anyway, it’s all first world problems until a tipsy evening out with Mike’s wife, Rachel (Alana Haim), leads to a startling confession: When she was a gothy, disaffected teenager, Emma planned and came close to executing a school shooting.

For a lot of you reading this — and certainly for the sanctimonious, hypocritical Rachel — that right there is enough to completely sour you on everything The Drama has cooking over its remaining sixty minutes. I don’t get it, personally, but I’ve now read enough outrage takes inspired by the film to understand that some of you just don’t engage with things that make you uncomfortable. And yes, it’s catastrophically depressing to consider that mass shootings are and will continue to be a thing. But they are a thing. People do them. Teenagers do them because being a teenager is a fucking nightmare, and they often have little to no understanding of — or recourse for — the Molotov cocktail of emotion inherent in that stage of life. Emma certainly didn’t, and while Charlie grapples with newfound doubts about whether he should tie himself to her for all eternity, the theatrically-aggrieved Rachel gets to work poisoning his friends and family against her. It all builds to a wedding day showdown that will ultimately make or break what was once a fairy tale love story.

Edited with a sharp, elliptical wit and teeming with a distinctly Scandinavian gallows humor sure to put some audiences on edge — especially those expecting a straightforward rom-com starring two of Hollywood’s brightest stars — The Drama is a pure sicko’s delight, a film that knows which psychological buttons to press and precisely how and when to press them. It’s a significant leap forward for Borgli after Dream Scenario, which has its share of intriguing moments but is ultimately too esoteric to hang together as a coherent work. Borgli threads the thematic needle much better this time around, allowing his immensely charming leads — Pattinson and Zendaya are straight-up terrific here, each adding a perfect blend of seasoning to their stock rom-com archetypes — to drive the drama at a more accessible pace. Borgli approaches humanity with the same cynicism as filmmakers like David Fincher and Ari Aster (the latter of whom produced Dream Scenario and The Drama), but subversive as it is, The Drama clearly still believes in everlasting love.

It’s that balance of rapture and repulsion that makes The Drama feel so refreshing. While “anti-rom-coms” like Materialists trip over their own lofty attempts to dismantle the entire Romance Industrial Complex, The Drama succeeds by exploring one simple, universal question: Can we ever actually love someone unconditionally? It’s an agonizing proposal for Charlie, one with no simple, easily-digestible answer (He does end up talking about their sex life at the wedding reception, by the way, but that’s not why he leaves it with two black eyes and a bloody nose). Some of you will agree with Rachel, who uses her cousin’s horrific mass shooting experience as justification for her outrage. Others will side with Charlie’s co-worker, Misha (Hailey Gates), who says she’d call the police on her boyfriend if he made a similar confession. Personally, I’d hate to be judged today for the person I was at fifteen. Hell, I’d hate to be judged today for the person I was yesterday. But that’s the beauty of Borgli’s film: We all have a “Still Would” Coordinate, and The Drama will help us find it.

The Drama hits U.S. theaters today.