Alex Wheeler Movie Ops

Discomfort can be generated in a variety of ways, both big and small. A poor joke can make you cringe. An inappropriate flirtation can make you recoil. But a disturbing revelation, well, that can send your life into shambles. All of these are present in The Drama, which brings plenty of its titular tone, but it’s just as invested in making you laugh and squirm.

Generating all this discombobulation is the relationship between Charlie (Robert Pattinson) and Emma (Zendaya). In the days before their wedding, the latter reveals a part of their teenage years that is completely out of line with the woman she’s grown into. Charlie does his best to come to terms with the revelation, but it’s big enough that he can’t help but reconsider the marriage. And he can’t help feeling bad about that. The situation makes him flail and her shut down, the combination of which causes everything that can go wrong to go wrong.

What the revelation is has been left out of advertising, so I’ll keep that secret, even though the film lets you in on it early. Suffice it to say that it’s disturbing, the kind of thing that will give some in the audience pause about it being so central to a star-studded film playing at their local megaplex. Is it tasteful to take on such a topic for entertainment, especially when the film eschews any real examination of its devastating effects? The Drama uses it simply as a jumping-off point for a romantic comedy about how we fall in love with our idea of a person, which can be far from who they really are (the film has the decency to state this trite premise instead of acting like it’s profound). Whether that is enough to justify such a surprise will be up to the individual viewer.

The film does have the decency to drop red flags about the couple before springing the big secret. Emma mentions never having been in love before Charlie, something her friends don’t know about her, which is curious. How are her friends so unaware of her love life? But Charlie doesn’t come into the relationship without red flags, either. He fakes having read a book to get a date with Emma, and he doesn’t even bother to learn anything about it before their first date. The pair are simply off, individually and together, which only exacerbates how difficult their situation is to handle. Nearly every attempt they make to move on blows up in their faces, often in a hilariously awkward manner.

Much is required of Pattinson and Zendaya to pull off a film that’s so all over the place, but both are up for the challenge. Zendaya has the slightly smaller role, as Emma turns more internal as everything falls apart. But she adds an underlying disquiet to her relative stillness. The film frequently jumps back in time to see Emma’s secret play out, often leaning on some intentionally inflammatory imagery to get a rise out of you. When it cuts back to Zendaya, we see her considering it at a remove, her lack of connection putting you at such unease that it’s hard not to laugh out of sheer discomfort. Pattinson, meanwhile, completely unravels. All the nervous twitching must’ve been exhausting to portray, along with all the awkward rambling. The humor with him is all on the surface, as is his nerves and his desires.

Their polar opposite reactions drive the wedge deeper between them, and the film plays out how you’d expect. In fact, you’ll almost certainly see coming most of what happens in the latter parts of the film because the plot itself is as straightforward as you can get. Like me, you’ll likely even know the last scene before it begins. It’s odd to put so much effort into making the details of the film so unexpected but the story so expected. It’s a large reason why The Drama feels so lightweight. Its ideas are few but its laughs are many. Unless you get riled up about the big secret, you’ll likely forget about the film quickly. There’s not enough behind the revelation to make it memorable, but at least you’ll laugh while watching it.

Release: available now in theaters
Director: Kristoffer Borgli
Writer: Kristoffer Borgli
Cast: Zendaya, Robert Pattinson, Mamoudou Athie, Alana Haim