The Drama ~ Review

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I don’t think it’s hyperbolic that planning a wedding is one of the most stressful periods in one’s life. Especially stressful is the last week, when everything needs to be ready to go. The guest list needs to be finalized, and flowers must be ordered. Are you giving a speech? Is your speech going to step on your partner’s? Is the DJ responsible? How about your dance? Don’t forget the crucial aspect of this…do you really know your partner?
 
Because of this inherently dramatic time, it’s not surprising just how many movies about weddings there are. From searing dramas to farcical comedies and everything in between, so many stories have been told about the run-up to a wedding. Now here’s The Drama, a new entry in the genre, call it searing drama-dark comedy-satire-farce. Yeah, it’s a little jumbled, muddled, and confused…much like planning a wedding itself.
 
Emma (Zendaya) and Charlie (Robert Pattinson) are hopelessly in love. From an awkward meet-cute in a Boston café to now living together in an incredible apartment and planning the upcoming wedding, they are a picture-perfect couple. While out for a tasting for the upcoming nuptials with another couple, Rachel (Alana Haim) and Mike (Mamoudou Athie), who will also be the Best Man and Maid of Honor, an impromptu game of “what’s the worst thing you’ve ever done” breaks out. Emma’s answer to this question is the movie’s big conceit (and something I won’t spoil here), but needless to say, it sends Charlie, who is mildly neurotic in the best of times, into a hapless spiral of confusion, self-loathing, and shame. And like any good farce, The Drama all comes to a head at the wedding.
 
The Drama is kind of an odd duck. On the one hand, it walks a tightrope between pitch-black comedy, relationship drama, and an honest-to-god slamming doors farce. This is helped along by writer/director Kristoffer Borgli’s unique direction. Employing a mostly quiet directing style, but using arrhythmic editing to jump cut between memories, fantasies, and the current time, which gives the film the feeling that you’re really in Emma and Charlie’s heads. The effect is so hypnotic that, for me, it made me feel like I was living this experience with these people. The problem is that the film is dealing with a lot of big themes and disparate tones, and it never quite coheres in the end. I don’t have a problem with ambiguous endings, but The Drama just does not quite stick the landing. Which is a little frustrating because I truly did like the film up to the end. Part of me almost wishes the film had leaned even harder into its farce.  
Zendaya and Pattinson give incredibly nuanced and empathetic performances. Zendaya is completely believable as someone reliving a dark part of her past that she’d really rather forget. Pattinson plays a charming guy on one hand, while on the other becomes a dark mirror of a Hugh Grant character – stepping into one absurd situation after another.
 
So, if The Drama ultimately fizzles out in the end, that doesn’t mean the whole movie is unworthy of one’s time. Much like real-life drama, The Drama is entertaining but might not amount to much.
 
Three Stars out of Four