Content warning: This review contains mentions of gun violence.

This review contains spoilers. 

“What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?”

That’s the question at the center of “The Drama,” A24’s newest film released Friday. The movie, directed by Norwegian filmmaker Kristoffer Borgli, stars Zendaya and Robert Pattinson as picture-perfect lovebirds Emma and Charlie. 

Throughout its buzzy press tour, “The Drama” marketed itself as a wedding rom-com-drama. At face value, it is — the film follows Charlie and Emma in the days leading up to their wedding, from rehearsing their first dance to picking out florals.

The couple appears idyllic for the first half hour of the movie. She’s a literary editor; he’s a museum curator. They share an impeccably curated apartment with floor-to-ceiling bookcases, a spiral staircase and kitschy art on every wall. They have a perfect meet-cute, a flawless sex life and banter to fuel endless self-insert daydreams.

At a tasting for the wedding dinner, Emma’s maid of honor Rachel (Alana Haim) goads the couple to reveal their worst misdeeds to one another before the wedding. While Charlie is up to the challenge, a wine-drunk Emma is more hesitant.

It’s only after much prying from the table that Emma finally reveals her secret: at 15, she planned to commit a school shooting. 

The couple spends the rest of the film’s nearly two-hour run time grappling with the weight of Emma’s reveal, with a distraught Charlie constantly wavering between forgiveness and horror. It’s clear what Borgli wants “The Drama” to convey: how conditional is unconditional love? What mistakes should we forgive the ones we love for?

The entire film is rife with dark, often absurd, humor aiming to challenge the morals of the audience. But given the frequency of school shootings in the U.S., the topic deserved much more care and attention than it was given.

To make matters worse, the glitziness of Zendaya and Pattison’s press tour, featuring quickie Las Vegas weddings and themed red carpet looks, felt jarring when contrasted with the heaviness of the film’s subject matter. 

This, paired with the twist’s omission from the trailer and use as a plot device for shock value, depreciates the impact school shootings have had, and continue to have, on many people across the country. The issue’s portrayal has been critiqued by parents of students lost to gun violence and school shooting survivors alike, concerned that the film is glamorizing the topic or contributing to the lack of severity that school shootings receive in the media. 

The film attempts some commentary on the complicated relationship between American culture and guns and the nation’s collective desensitization towards mass shootings. That being said, nearly every mention of the issue after its introduction is presented humorously — like a young Emma running into technological difficulties while filming her manifesto video, or the wedding photographer repeating the word “shoot” to the mortified couple.  

The audience at our screening found both of these scenes, and the majority of the other poor-taste moments, deeply amusing. For what it’s worth, it is almost impossible not to laugh at the film’s absurdity, but its humor remains uncomfortable when confronted with the reality of how frequent school shootings are in this country.  

 Despite its missteps, the film remains strikingly engaging from start to finish. Borgli knows how to catch and hold the audience’s attention: His smash-cuts are crisp, his pace is perfectly frenzied and he meticulously crafts each aspect of every shot to amplify the tension between his characters.

There’s also no denying that Pattinson and Zendaya are powerhouse actors with palpable chemistry, and their talent shines through in lighthearted and dismal moments alike. 

Had the film chosen any other issue to center, it would be a masterfully crafted reflection on love, forgiveness and abject betrayal. As it is, “The Drama” feels like a waste — a perfect storm of talent, thrown away on an insensitive premise.

Email: [email protected] 

Email: [email protected] 

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