Directed by Kristoffer Borgli – Starring Zendaya and Robert Pattinson
Days before their wedding, an engaged couple finds their relationship thrown into chaos by an unexpected revelation.
The Drama is a very strange movie to describe without ruining what makes it work.
On the surface, it has the structure of a romantic comedy. There’s romance, an upcoming wedding, relationship problems, and plenty of humor. But there’s also an undercurrent of anxiety running through everything that makes even seemingly ordinary moments feel uncomfortable.
It’s funny without really being a comedy, compelling without feeling like a conventional drama, and suspenseful without becoming a thriller.
Zendaya and Robert Pattinson are fantastic. So much of the movie depends on the two of them navigating constantly shifting tones, and they make every change feel natural. There’s love and resentment, anxiety and discomfort, tenderness and black comedy, sometimes bumping up against each other within the same scene.
The film also finds clever ways to put us inside the characters’ heads. There are moments when thoughts and fears become so immediate that I briefly found myself wondering what was actually happening. It adds another layer of uneasiness to a movie that already seems determined to keep you slightly off balance.
There’s romance, black comedy, and plenty of tension, but The Drama is also about passing judgment.
How much can one piece of information change the way we see another person? How much should someone’s worst moment define everything else we know about them? And how easily can we pass judgment when our own histories aren’t spotless?
I don’t think the movie offers particularly easy answers to any of those questions. It gives us information, lets the characters react to it, and leaves us to wrestle with our own reactions as well.
And the movie makes the audience part of that process. As the secrets unfold, we start reevaluating earlier scenes and putting new meaning into things that initially seemed benign.
The Drama never stops being entertaining. It can make you laugh, make you uncomfortable, create genuine suspense, and still leave room for romance.
It takes the familiar framework of a romantic comedy and keeps pushing it into increasingly unfamiliar territory. It’s weird, tense, funny, uncomfortable, romantic, and I’m not sure I’ve seen another movie quite like it.
Verdict: True Cinema
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