The Drama, 2026.
Written and Directed by Kristoffer Borgli.
Starring Zendaya, Robert Pattinson, Alana Haim, Mamoudou Athie, Zoë Winters, Hailey Benton Gates, Jordyn Curet, Michael Abbott Jr., YaYa Gosselin, Sydney Lemmon, Anna Baryshnikov, Greer Cohen, Peyton Jackson, Hannah Gross, and Jeremy Levick.
SYNOPSIS:
A happily engaged couple is put to the test when an unexpected turn sends their wedding week off the rails.
Emma (Zendaya) and Charlie (Robert Pattinson) are working their way through perfecting a dance performance in preparation for their wedding. After a drunk game of “the worst thing you’ve ever done” alongside Best Man Mike (Mamoudou Athie) and Maid of Honor Rachel (musician/actor Alana Haim), there is, well, the drama of Norwegian writer/director Kristoffer Borgli’s dark rom-com The Drama, with a revelation so upsetting, shocking, and disorienting that it throws off the relationship dynamic between the Groom and the Bride, initiating another performance in one of them keeping up romantic appearances while juggling a plethora of emotions.
Without spoiling and without mincing words, it genuinely is the type of past baggage that would have anyone considering breaking off the wedding and potential viewers contemplating leaving the theater if its subject matter is simply one they can’t handle for any number of justifiable reasons. The screenplay is also smart at using a seemingly harmless drinking game to not only put the plot in motion, but also broach the idea that all four of these people have their issues (some more than others, as none of the three answers can quite compare to the most severe confession), with their answers functioning as lines we draw of what we can empathize with, and not just the characters themselves. It’s also worth noting that only one of them is a thought, not something horrific that was actually committed, which forces one to weigh the variables in the answers.
Sold through stellar performances from all involved, these mixed emotions are also visualized in Kristoffer Borgli’s striking direction, which takes some of the daydreaming cues and influences from his previous film, Dream Scenario (which, in case you forgot or aren’t aware, was about the entire world dreaming about Nicolas Cage, translating to a story in the real world about thought crimes, something that is a throughline between the movies), cutting to brief, hauntingly static images of violence that could either be from the past, a glimpse of the future and where this narrative is headed, or something in one character’s head because they absolutely cannot shake what they know about their partner.
Reveals are often spoken of as something that re-contextualizes the narrative for an entire audience, making for tantalizing re-watches; here, the film knocks down everything the first 15 minutes sets up (with such tight, economical editing from the filmmaker, collaborating with Joshua Raymond Lee, dropping in all the relevant information about this couple, succinctly juxtaposing the past and present). It is also doing the former, as the early dialogue is specific and carries over into the later stretches with profundity. There are also times when the screenplay feels a bit too forced, written in a certain way to get the characters talking about something, which isn’t that much of a flaw, given how much there is to chew on thematically. There isn’t a second wasted here, with every exchange between characters both fueling their internal conflicts while testing our empathy just as much as theirs.
One could also argue that some characters lack empathy, whereas another person might be entirely on that person’s side. Part of the film seems to exist to challenge the limits of empathy. In another breath, it could suggest that no one will ever know everything about the person they love (unless they play this game and happen to get painfully honest answers), and thus, what love truly is comes down to radical acceptance. Perhaps any other version of love is hollow.
Nevertheless, much of The Drama mines the subject of that reveal for some truly dark laughs (even when utilizing high school flashbacks for the character), while also functioning as incredibly pointed about the violence it shows and how some characters, in the present day, talk about it as if they are walking satire for the sociopolitical commentary the film is engaging with. It’s as much about America’s feelings as a country in some regards as it is about this one relationship on the brink of collapse.
Meanwhile, one of these characters not only rethinks everything they know about their partner in this relationship, but also begins deleting phrases before entire paragraphs of their speech. The stress of it all gets to them to the point that they begin acting out, partly as a broad romantic gesture to rationalize what they now know as a defense of that person before the rest of that society, and as justification for still possibly going through with marriage. Admittedly, there are also times when the film feels more provocative than deep, and sometimes inorganic, when it forces these four people into being at odds with one another.
The Drama will cause plenty of real-world drama; many couples will be tested, and marriages will be broken off if they play the same game truthfully. It’s also an uncomfortable, darkly funny plea for society to confront some of its ugliest behavior and that root cause, while searching for empathy in a place where, again, no one would be judged for having any toward that person to begin with. It makes for multi-layered characters and drama worth revisiting.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder
