A single question – "what's the worst thing you've ever done?" – derails a couple's trip to the altar in The Drama, an intense, probing psychological drama dressed in the formal attire of a wedding comedy.
It explores whether we should be defined by the things we almost did, no matter how horrific, and which secrets deserve to stay hidden in the shadows forever.
Emma (Zendaya) and Charlie (Robert Pattinson) are the happy couple, just days away from walking down the aisle, when a truly shocking secret comes spilling out of the bride-to-be's mouth.
They're having a few drinks with the best man (Mamoudou Athie) and the maid of honor (Alana Haim) and playfully sharing their past indiscretions when Emma mentions, in the spirit of the confessional exercise, that when she was a teenager — and this is your trigger warning — she planned, but did not pull off, a school shooting.
Needle scratch, hold the phone. You did what?
But she didn't do it; she stopped herself. But what does her intent say about her? And what does that say about and mean for Charlie, who is days away from marrying this maybe-almost-monster?
It's a colossal admission that not only changes the tenor of the conversation but also the entire dynamic of the movie, which up to that point is a rather straightforward boy-meets-girl story.
But writer-director Kristoffer Borgli (2023's Dream Scenario) not only welcomes the awkwardness, he embraces it, sitting with it, forcing his characters to sit with it, and forcing audiences to sit with it as well.
The Drama is going to cause some hugely uncomfortable conversations, and that's the power of this bold, daring, risky movie.
Zendaya is radiant as the conflicted Emma, played as a teenager in flashback by Jordyn Curet. She was bullied as a teen and was an outcast among her peers, and she came up with what she thought was a solution to her problem, even going so far as to record a video premeditating her slaughter.
When she didn't go through with it – just as many of us don't follow through on our very worst impulses – what is her penance? Is moving forward in life enough? Is growing past that moment allowed?
Pattinson – who continues to subvert any inkling of playing straight, flat, leading man roles – lets viewers understand the terror with which he's stricken, and Borgli, along with his editors and his sound design team, create an off-kilter feel that lets us inside Charlie's head.
Things do manage to go slightly askew in an outsize climactic scene where characters' behaviors leave the realm of the tightly controlled reality that has been established up to that point.
But The Drama is the rare star-driven film that is willing to tackle big ideas, ask big questions and cause big discomfort. We need more of these movies, not less, messiness and all. Wedding season just got a lot more provocative. – The Detroit News/Tribune News Service
Summary:
A compelling watch, for better, for worse
