Big Screen Views: The Drama
The bride-to-be is not what they seem in this dark comedy.
What a gorgeous couple they are, hurtling toward their fastidious wedding next week. Emma and Charlie are in love and at peace, or so it seems.
“The Drama,” starring Robert Pattinson and Zendaya, has a smirky title and a huge white dress on the movie poster, so la la la, we’re up for a Saturday night rom-com.
Then, one night not long into the tale, things slow down. Our betrothed pair is eating fancy food and drinking a lot of wine with Emma’s matron of honor Rachel (Alana Haim) and her level-headed husband Mike (Mamoudou Athie).
The four play a sort of game. Each person answers the question “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?”
Emma is the last to speak. You can sense something big is coming as the conversation comes to a standstill.
Then, the revelation. It’s something 30-year-old Emma almost did, half her lifetime ago.
Her sin brings on a freight train of doubts down on Charlie. Who is this person I’m about to marry? Has she been performing the whole time we’ve been together? What is she capable of? Can I live with this piece of her past? Can she?
Those are just a few of the questions for the bridegroom-to-be. Charlie is a champion overthinker with an imagination that makes his days a living hell. Emma blames her blurt on the alcohol consumption, but she cannot unsay what she has just confessed. Her sin is all the more shocking because it shatters prevailing beliefs about young women of color.
And then we have Rachel, Emma’s “friend” who judges and trashes her.
The bride, it turns out, is a woman with no real friends except her fiancé, and he is freaked all the way out.
Meantime, we’re getting ready for the wedding! The elaborate nuptial production! We have a photographer (Zoë Winters) who sees something amiss with this couple, yet tries valiantly to get them to relax and look carefree for the camera. We have a DJ with her own sometimes-hidden problem. And there is the choreographer (Celia Rowlson-Hall), who strives to sculpt Emma and Charlie into perfect performers for their first dance as husband and wife.
“The Drama” mixes ink-black humor and a narrative that is both deliciously provocative and not too predictable. How many romantic comedies have been made about wedding planning gone awry? Thousands? This one is different. Let us thank director Kristoffer Borgli for that.
The movie is about how we perform for each other—in hopes of starting a relationship, keeping a relationship, impressing others and showing that we are worthy. Just how much is curated and performed in any friendship? When one of us falls off of the stage, where do we go from there?
After seeing “The Drama” unfold, you may think about asking your partner, friend, family member—or yourself—some of the questions it raises. Doing so takes guts, especially if you have your wedding coming up. But seriously: I like to think that these questions about performance versus reality have the power to bring us closer together—if we can mix honesty with acceptance.
