Credit: Courtesy of A24
After almost two hours of visceral and verbal reactions to “The Drama,” the crowd of moviegoers bustled out of the theater in a rush to escape the onslaught of unease that had kept them pinned to their seats.
Only a few viewers stayed still, waiting for the credit roll to present an air of finality. The indecisive nature of the final scenes left the audience submerged in an unsettling idea: you can never really know someone. More disturbingly, the couples in the audience, who perhaps expected a romantic message about the endurance of love, moved slightly further away from their partners.
The first 20 minutes of “The Drama” are sickeningly sweet and entirely predictable given they were the main content used in the film's advertisements. In those same trailers it’s clear that the plot hinges on one scene and one intense conversation. As that scene approaches, marching ominously closer, viewers cannot help but sit up and lean in, excited for the satisfaction of getting in on the big secret.
Soon to be bride Emma, played by Zendaya, reveals the “worst thing” she has ever done—a question teased in the trailer. The twist is that she actually reveals an indigestibly convoluted fact about her past. It is the fear that her past impacts her current identity and her fiancé Charlie’s reaction, that set the tone for the rest of the film.
Charlie, played by Robert Pattinson, maid of honor Rachel, played by Alana Haim, and best man Mike, played by Mamoudou Athie, serve as three different reactionaries that host discourse about Emma’s past. The rest of the film is an intense hypothetical question: what would you do if your partner revealed this secret the week before your wedding?
Amid the irony and dark humor, the characters dive into themes about the culpability of one’s identity. What elements of younger generation’s personalities, actions and thoughts can they chalk up to social media trends and cultural expectations? How can you discern the nature of a human being when so much of their nurture was disheveled by the internet? In interviews, Zendaya and Pattinson promised a film that would start dialogue, and they were absolutely correct.
Shot on 35mm film, the cinematography and directing choices brought the motifs of this edgy story to the forefront with noticeable, filmic imperfections. Writer and director Kristoffer Borgli, known for “Dream Scenario” (2023) and “Sick of Myself” (2022), has a talent for creating disturbing satires that teeter on the edge of justifiable. Borgli’s style breaks up intense and uncomfortable themes, with humor so dark that one questions whether to laugh or grimace.
Visually, the shots consistently highlight reminders of Emma’s ever-present secret. There are subtle color gradients of red and the more obvious choice to insert Zendaya’s younger counterpart,17-year-old actress Jordyn Curet, the perpetrator of Emma’s youthful mistakes, into grown Emma’s place. It is impossible to forget about the central messaging for both the audience and Charlie as his obsession develops into its own conflict.
The minimalist soundtrack, written by Daniel Pemberton, was consistent with the tenor of the film, but lacked a certain level of nuance. Like many A24 films, this movie called the audience to answer complex social questions and purposely prevented viewers from settling in their seats. Pemberton’s anxious classical tones emphasized that drama but didn’t develop it in any way.
Similarly, the film’s marketing embraced a mysterious nature. Much like advertising for “Hereditary” (2018), this press tour avoided the all-important plot twist to encourage a real-time reaction from viewers. However, while “Hereditary” set up false expectations to lure in audiences with a certain taste and undermine their expectations, the twist in “The Drama” rested behind a dam of wedding photos that contained the promise of some daunting secret.
The clickbait nature of the press tour for “The Drama” forced viewers to digest the social commentary in real time. Although the messaging was unexpected, the mindful production sparked an important conversation about young American culture.
In an era of lengthy think-productions that tire the average viewer with three hours of conversations and avant-garde shot choices, this movie was fast paced, driven by anxiety and obsession that left no stone unturned. The premise is a mac daddy of hypotheticals that presented film geeks and social analysts with a myriad of perspectives to consider and debate.
Interpretations of the critique, from cancel culture to marriage idealization and moral potentiality, bounced around in my head as I prepared myself to leave the theater. Even though the film prompted a dissertation worth of analysis, I couldn’t help but feel it gave me no answers. Although answering impossible questions might not have been Borgli’s purpose, the mass appeal of the hopeful ending was unsatisfying.
A24 films are traditionally unconcerned with appeasing every audience, so, although it wasn’t a Hollywood ending, the film teetered between conclusive and artfully ambiguous. I have to wonder if the production company’s path in the past several years has taken them to a less auteur style that guarantees some level of box office satisfaction. It felt in step with “Eternity” (2025) and “Materialists” (2025)—two recent A24 films that were romance adjacent and featured big names in Hollywood.
Still, “The Drama” was anything but a two-dimensional rom com, which is possibly why the resolute ending felt misplaced. But, perhaps, it should be the most unsettling that the characters endured a great upheaval and found a way to cope with a problem that I, the impotent viewer, could not solve. In that case, Borgli perfectly undermined my expectations.
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