About a week ago, my sorority sister texted to tell me she was on her way to see The Drama. I asked her what Zendaya’s secret was, as the mystery had been a major marketing point for the film. Hours later, she replied, “It’s pretty bad.”
Fast-forward a few days and I’m sitting in the theater, my face hot from anticipation waiting for the “big reveal.” The film knows what you’re there for. When a drunken Zendaya reveals “the worst thing she’s ever done,” the excitement is quickly overshadowed by shame — “This is what I was so excited to hear?”
Directed by Kristoffer Borgli, A24’s latest conversation-starter, follows Emma (Zendaya) and Charlie (Robert Pattinson) through the week leading up to their wedding, with frequent flashbacks to show you how they got there. As Charlie is writing his wedding speech with his best man Mike (Mamoudou Athie), we see their perfect rom-com meet-cute. Charlie saw Emma reading in a coffee shop and quickly researches the book she’s reading in an attempt to spark conservation with her. Emma seems to ignore him, but it’s revealed that she’s deaf in one ear, prompting her to tell Charlie to start over. On the surface, they’re a cute and likable couple. But, as an audience member, you keep your distance, knowing something bad is about to happen.
The infamous conversation happens during a pre-wedding wine tasting with Mike and his wife Rachel (Alana Haim), Emma’s maid of honor. After Emma and Charlie think they see their wedding DJ doing drugs, they toy with the idea of firing her. Emma and Mike wonder if they should judge a person based on their worst day, which leads Rachel to reveal that, before they got married, she and Mike played a game of “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?”
Powered by liquid courage, the four friends share their darkest secrets. But Emma’s clandestine confession stops the game in its tracks. It’s not the juicy bombshell I was hoping for. It’s something much worse.
Emma’s secret threatens to derail all of her relationships. Rachel, who claims a dubious personal connection to Emma’s secret, is the most judgmental. Charlie, on the other hand, is grappling with the idea that he may not truly know the woman he’s about to marry and looking for a reason to justify Emma’s behavior. Was it the result of some kind of trauma?
On one level, the movie is a commentary on cancel culture. Thanks to Borgli’s canny script and a savvy dose of Zendaya’s star power, you grow to like Emma. Then, Borgli forces you through a series of mental gymnastics as you, like Charlie, wonder if what she did was that bad or unforgivable — or if she even did anything at all. It’s the difference between seeing a celebrity get canceled and seeing the same behavior from someone close to you. While it may be easy to click the unfollow button and remove an artist from your streaming library, there’s a lot more nuance involved in removing someone from your life. It’s as though our brains are itching to find the reason this person ruined our expectations.
The Drama bristles with irreverent humor that brings a little guilt after each laugh. Pattinson does a great job bringing you along through his stressful pre-nuptial reckoning, while Haim shines as the perfect sneaky villain. Zendaya’s acting is phenomenal. Her natural likability makes it harder as an audience member to definitively write Emma off as “bad” or “cancelable,” but she peppers her portrayal with subtle flashes of anger and sneaky pettiness which make you wonder, deep down, is she really a monster? Or is it that are we all a little monstrous?
The Drama
Now playing
Multiple locations