'The Drama' has a provocative premise — but it never commits

By Aisha Harris

No matter how real and genuinely in love a couple may be, there’s no getting around an essential truth: weddings are an act of performance. Whatever variations there may be in the details of that performance, expectations exist and surprises are rare.

The Drama understands this and cracks those expectations wide open with a perverse sense of humor. Filmmaker Kristoffer Borgli’s intriguing and disquieting comedy is, to some extent, about the strains of wedding performance, and more acutely, that of relationship performance. It begins with a meet-cute that’s less cute than it is kind of embarrassing, in the way straight men can so often be. Charlie (Robert Pattinson), a handsome bumbling Brit, crafts a scenario of mild deception to hit on Emma (Zendaya), the bookish beautiful American he spies in a Cambridge, Mass., coffee shop. Some might call this a relationship red flag, a tenuous foundation upon which to try building a connection with a stranger. (Not unlike, say, lying about your height on a dating app.)

But plenty of people in relationships miss red flags or ignore them completely, and Joshua Raymond Lee’s punchy, rhythmic editing sequences quickly reveal that sometime after that manufactured coffee shop flirtation, Emma and Charlie are totally in love and soon to be wed.

Or maybe not — there are red flags, and then there are four-alarm-fires.

Not long into The Drama, we (and Charlie) learn a truly dark secret about Emma’s past that sets into motion the rest of the movie’s unnerving events. I'm intentionally keeping things vague here — but I get into the details of this reveal, and how well it does and doesn’t work, in my full review.

The Drama is sharpest when underscoring the differing (and in some cases, absolutely hypocritical) reactions to that dark time in Emma’s past. It mines clever comedy from Charlie’s internal panic: As the pair tries to continue carrying out their wedding planning as if nothing has changed (meetings with the photographer, the florist, etc.), he’s frantically searching for the escape hatch. Suddenly, every little cute or sexy thing Emma’s done throughout the relationship is now cast in a sinister light, and Pattinson, per usual, plays his character’s emotional journey to the hilt when called for, dialing it back when needed.

Just as the couple's friends are flabbergasted by Emma’s past, it’s unlikely anyone going into The Drama completely cold would guess her secret. She doesn't seem to have it in her to do such a horrible thing.

But of course, that’s the point. Borgli provokes by suggesting any of us could be like Emma.

A third rail premise like this could offer an explosively rich characterization for Zendaya to sink her teeth into. But it’s worth noting that the actress and her team asked to be considered for the role as the screenplay was making the rounds; Borgli did not necessarily conceive of it with her or any Black actress in mind. As such, the part is frustratingly restrained and misaligned with the bold concept the movie presents.

Emma is frequently viewed through Charlie’s shocked, mortified, and ultimately flattening perception of her, with little of her own interiority to counter or enhance it. The screenplay leans into gender expectations but completely sidesteps ways that her race might factor into her anxieties and decision-making. That avoidance is fast becoming a given across the actress’s projects; Zendaya has more to work with in Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers, though it, too, is unwilling or unable to narratively integrate its star’s racial background in any meaningful way, to its detriment.

But even if Emma’s characterization took place entirely within the confines of Charlie’s increasingly distressing imagination, manifesting his worst fears about the person he thought he knew and loved, you might still expect some bite from the actress’s performance. There are flickers, but it doesn’t feel like enough.

On its own, The Drama lacks depth; if you’re going to poke the bear, you should have to confront it. And yet as a viewing experience it’s an arresting ride, especially communally, offering up more than enough gristle to chew on long after the credits have rolled.