‘The Drama’: Cringeworthy, Contemplative & Quite Excellent 

Although Kristoffer Borgli’s last film was Dream Scenario, he has tapped into the stuff of living nightmares with The Drama, a movie about a wedding in the same way that Marty Supreme is about table tennis. Darkly funny and terribly upsetting, it begs us to ask where the boundaries of romantic love lie when pushed to the absolute limit.

By all accounts, Emma (Zendaya) and Charlie (Robert Pattinson) have had a perfect relationship. It starts with an adorable meet cute in a coffee shop, moves onto living in a perfect flat and is looking to culminate in a fantasy marriage. Could anything put a wrench in the gears of their perfect union?

Turns out, yes. While preparing arrangements for the day with friends Rachel (Alana Haim) and Mike (Mamoudou Athie), Emma reveals a dark secret that sends the other three for a spin. As other preparations also start to spin out of control, Emma and Charlie’s relationship lands positively on the rocks as they try to navigate this unexpected turn of events.

A film willing to explore discomfort

The exact nature of Emma’s dark secret is best discovered yourself, though it’s not really a ‘twist’ per se. The Drama is quite comfortable revealing the full depth of its premise at the end of its first act, allowing the characters to spin out in authentically interesting ways while continuing to plan for their supposedly perfect day.

It’s that… Well, marriage of expectations versus reality that makes The Drama so compelling, as Emma and Charlie ponder if they really know each other before they tie the knot. With the film, writer and director Borgli forces us to wonder to what extent love is or should be unconditional when the idea of your partner doesn’t match up with the hidden reality.

It’s a terrifying concept, deftly portrayed by both Zendaya and Pattinson as the fracturing couple’s two halves. They react quite differently to Emma’s reveal, with the two actors delicately and humorously exploring the dynamic of a couple trying to put on a front to get survive until their big day – one that’s made extra painful when they cease reckoning with the revelation and instead have to continue their wedding planning.

The Drama is a modern fable

They’re also supported by a wonderful wider cast that add onto the anxiety, such as Zoë Winters’ as an unnervingly cheery photographer or Hailey Benton Gates as Charlie’s meek assistant Misha. With a careful hand, Borgli guides these characters towards a final act that is equal parts hilarious and nightmare-inducing – given the precedence of foreboding dreams and visions throughout The Drama, I was genuinely hoping the characters could wake up from the hell they’d found themselves in. Alas, no such reprieve comes.

Although this may all make Borgli’s film sound rather cynical, it still finds the time to be oddly romantic in its own way. It highlights a much more ugly part of relationships and marriage than your standard romance movie, but that’s precisely what makes The Drama such an interesting investigation of the topic.

It’s a modern fable that asks “Would you still be able to love your partner after such an earth-shattering revelation?” The script has no easy answers for this question, but you’ll have plenty of time to ponder it as we watch this couple spiral out during the wedding week from hell.

★★★★

The Drama is in cinemas now.