The Drama Review: A Relationship Time Bomb Disguised as a Rom-Com

The Drama starts with a simple premise: During their wedding week, Emma Harwood (played by Zendaya) and Charlie Thompson (played by Robert Pattinson) see everything go off the rails following a disturbing revelation about the woman's past. The film transforms this into a grand melodrama of errors, biting comedy, and worryingly deep reflections.

Written and directed by Kristofer Borgli and distributed by A24, The Drama arrives in theaters with a mixed reception from critics and audiences. With two major stars like Zendaya and Robert Pattinson in the lead roles, the film garnered significant attention throughout its marketing campaign and created high expectations.

But did it manage to live up to the hype?

The review below does NOT contain spoilers. You can keep reading safely. For now…

Charlie and Emma haven't been engaged for very long, but they are certain they want to get married. As wedding week approaches, both are immersed in their regular commitments as well as the wedding planning, which seems equally important to both. The way the film introduces the characters carries a subtlety that plants all the necessary information to toy with the audience later on.

Everything derails when, at a tasting dinner, a friend couple reveals that before their own wedding they told each other the worst thing they had ever done. The exercise seems intriguing and they bring the topic to the table. Everyone shares their story. When the ball lands with our dream couple, that is when everything begins to crumble. The revelation itself isn't the most important issue here (though it certainly carries weight), but what sustains the film's plot is what happens afterward.

The way the couple chooses to handle this situation step by step is the real filling of this wedding cake made of confusion and coated in intrigue. No solution is easy at this point, and nothing is simply "up for discussion." The couple enters a crisis where the smallest details become strange territory for conflict and a toxic brand of comedy that keeps you constantly reflecting on "why are we laughing at this?"

The script is deliciously intelligent from this moment forward. The scenes following this break are full of paranoia, confusion, and red herrings. The screenplay guides you toward conclusions, theories, and feelings. Then it undoes them and reconstructs the puzzle with different pieces without ever warning you that the rules have changed. All of this occurs while providing more romance between the couple, more of their past, and increasingly tangled situations for the two to navigate.

Beyond the couple, the plot expands the moral question, putting other characters into the "push and pull" game that comes with dealing with the dinner revelation. This is where the film's theme is born and flourishes.

It is impossible to analyze this film without mentioning how it presents a clear portrait of an American elite that views problems through an exclusive lens derived from their privileges. Some characters have different perspectives and it is as comical as it is concerning how they are treated within the plot, facing silencing, alienation, and constant attempts at demoralization.

It is difficult to fully dissect the film's theme without revealing the secret shared at dinner, but it is important to note that the moral debate accompanying it is a great success for the script and for the message the film leaves for anyone who watches it.

It is also impossible not to mention that the secondary characters shine brightly in this story. Even with two heavy-hitting stars in the lead, there are no small roles in The Drama. Every supporting character leaves a mark in some way and brings more elements to the scenes.

It is understandable that after several sequences where tension builds, conflicts double, and complications become increasingly tangled, the audience might expect a bombshell ending. Unfortunately, I must report that this isn't the case.

It isn't that the ending is lackluster. Far from it. The drama does reach a peak, and we see the unfolding of many relevant things including sequences that resolve and tie up the plot. However, after building a series of red herrings and reassembling them several times in different arrangements, the film almost tricks you into expecting one thing and frustrates you when it decides to deliver another.

Is this entirely bad? Not exactly. There is something honest about a film that prepares you for an explosion but decides to give you an implosion instead. The Drama doesn't want to give you catharsis. In fact, it wants to leave you with the same nagging discomfort as the protagonist couple: the feeling that the conflict has no clean solution, and perhaps it never did.

Finally, it is important to highlight the technical quality of The Drama. The direction, art, sound, and cinematography are not the most inventive or auteur-driven in cinema, but they definitely work in unison to build every scene, making the theatrical experience very valuable.

The new film by Kristofer Borgli surprises as much as it shocks and, regardless of your stance on the moral judgment the film proposes, this is certainly a movie worth seeing!

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

What remains after finishing The Drama is the feeling that this is a story to be digested over days rather than hours.

And you? Do you want to know the worst thing your fiancé or fiancée has ever done? Are you sure you're ready to handle it?