Warning: contains spoilers for The Drama, which is in cinemas now.
At what point is a red flag impossible to ignore? That’s the principal question posed in this combustible new drama from Norwegian writer/director Kristoffer Borgli, which pushes the genres of romcom and marital drama to their very extremes. In fact, cinema has never known pre-wedding jitters quite like this.
Starring Robert Pattinson and Zendaya as a couple in Boston about to tie the knot, The Drama is a film that hinges on a twist. But in contrast to The Sixth Sense, The Usual Suspects or Fight Club, where a late reveal memorably casts previous scenes in a new light, The Drama plays its hand early. And what lands on the table is indeed entirely original and unpredictable... even if Borgli can’t decide where to go in its wake.
Charlie (Pattinson) and Emma (Zendaya) first encounter each other in a café and share a textbook meet-cute: she’s the bookstore clerk reading by the window and he’s the museum director who pretends to have read what she’s holding purely to strike up conversation.
In the blink of an eye they’re loved up and having dinner to sample catering options for their fast-approaching dream wedding. Their friends Rachel and Mike (a terrifically catty Alana Haim and Mamoudou Athie) mention how before they got married, they asked each other: what’s the worst thing you’ve ever done? And that’s when the bombshell drops.
Publicity for The Drama has been subtly subdued and entirely reliant on the profile of its stars, with press coverage limited in the hope of preserving the twist. Skirting around it, though, will not make for a worthwhile discussion of the film’s merits – so if you’d prefer to “go in blind” then it’s best to stop reading here.
The skeleton in Emma’s closet is that she meticulously planned and intended to carry out a school shooting while at high school, only to stop short at the 11th hour. Naturally, this prompts Charlie to reconsider their relationship – and also causes a rupture in her friendship with maid-of-honour Rachel.
“You always find a way to turn my drama into comedy,” Charlie says early on while drafting his wedding speech, which becomes pivotal as the film launches into screwball comedy with a script that is both too on the nose and pleased with itself. The incendiary nature of Emma’s revelation means it is of little surprise that Eddington director Ari Aster is credited as a producer on The Drama, but Borgli’s film offers little social commentary on a subject that deserves sensitivity or interrogation.
The Norwegian made his name with provocative fare in Sick of Myself and Dream Scenario: dark comedies about narcissistic artists or what happens when Nicolas Cage appears in every American’s dreams.
The Drama has a similarly jet-black sense of humour, but somehow recalls all of Todd Solondz, Danish dinner-party-from-hell Festen and even 45 Years, starring Sir Tom Courtenay and Charlotte Rampling. Where the latter asked intelligent questions of spousal trust and repression, though, Borgli’s priority is merely making mischief.
Similarly, even if you put aside the mass-shooting talk (assuming those words can ever be put together), The Drama’s attempt to be a keenly observed relationship comedy is another shoe that doesn’t quite fit.
In quoting Freud and referencing Louis Malle films, Charlie stretches relatability, while the couple’s ever-so-chic apartment stocked with houseplants and a spiral staircase wouldn’t look out of place in the wish-fulfilment romcoms of Nancy Meyers – only a title like It’s Complicated wouldn’t quite cover it for them, of course.
Fortunately, Zendaya and Pattinson are saving graces. The former fashions a compelling enigma by riffing on the girl-next-door charms of her MJ in Marvel’s Spider-Man films and the troubled moodiness of her Euphoria work; the latter is endlessly charming and comedic as a beleaguered British fop whose life appears increasingly Kafkaesque.
By the time a killer final scene rolls around, The Drama is somewhat limping over the line, but its leads lend a crucial heartbeat to a film frustratingly engineered for discourse, not depth.
The Drama is out now in cinemas.
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