“The Drama” is a film that really asks its audience “what would you do?” forcing viewers to ride the chaotic coaster of a disturbingly real life situation with the soon to be married Charlie and Emma (Robert Pattison and Zendaya).
Marketed as a comedy, with very limited advertisement and press prior to its release, I was excited to see what story these two iconic actors would be portraying together. At the moment this duo seems to be ruling the entertainment industry. However, despite their mutual resurgence into the spotlight, I still found myself curious to see what their partnership on this project would look like. As expected the acting was phenomenal, even if I had to remind myself a few times not to conflate my feelings around some of Zendaya’s other characters with those for Emma.
Despite the lack of marketing, spoilers or over-exposing trailers, once the movie started I found it underwhelming and predictable. I wanted to be wrong about assuming where it was headed, but unfortunately I was not. I am speculative however, if this was intentional. The film felt so perfectly in time with America’s reality right now, that I felt I could have been reading someone airing out their dirty laundry on Reddit. I couldn’t help but think about how this exact situation is happening all over this country daily. The “drama” didn’t hit me in the way I imagine the director had anticipated because this is just real life.
The crux of the issue lies in the film’s director: Kristoffer Borgli. Taking a deep dive after the film I discovered Kristoffer Borgli was the director. Upon learning that Borgli is a Norwegian director, it became clear to me that this was entirely the point of the film. Known for films like “Sick of Myself” and “The Dream Scenario,” his work tends to force America under a satirical lens, poking fun at serious issues within the country through dark comedy interpretations. “The Drama” was no exception to this, dancing around the larger issues of how bullies are made, and how poorly mental health struggles are handled within the states. The “drama” the entire film felt small compared to everyone else’s reactions to the topic on hand.
Before exploring this further I wanted to put a warning out for all the emetophobia folks out there, heed warning this film contains a ton of vomiting. It’s assumed that this was meant to symbolize a purging of secrets. We see this first with Emma, and then affects Charlie once his truth is revealed and he finds himself in a mess far worse than Emma’s secret.
It felt like everyone in this film was doing their best to one up one another in how “bad” they can be while simultaneously claiming their ugly secrets weren’t nearly as bad as anyone else’s. It felt very immature, how one may describe people who peaked in high school, or never left their mean-girl-gossip ways behind them. The prime example of this being through the character Rachel (Alana Heim) who was supposed to be one of Emma’s best friends and bridesmaids. Rachel egged on Emma to share the worst thing she had ever done over dinner with her own husband and Charlie just a few days shy of the wedding. Without spoiling Emma’s big secret, I can honestly say that Rachel’s in my opinion was far worse.
She describes how as a child she locked a neighborhood boy, who is on the spectrum, in a closet, in an abandoned trailer in the woods. She then proceeds to share how she told no one, not his parents, her parents or even the cops when the search party started for him. She then brushes off the entire memory by saying it didn’t matter in the end because after a day they finally found him, so it’s not like anyone got hurt.
Despite Emma’s delivery on her big secret, and an abrupt halt to the characters dinner followed by appalled reactions on the screen, the audience at least within my theater didn’t seem to share the same sentiment. The bigger gasps came when Rachel told her secret, as shared above. Rachel completely disregarded the trauma she likely caused the boy she locked in the trailer closet, much like how she currently was unable to empathize with younger Emma when learning of her past. Rachel behaved as though she wasn’t a bully then and entirely missed the point that it was because of mean children like her that young Emma considered doing the horrible thing she held onto as secret for all these years.
All in all the film I think worked on the level as a comedy; I certainly laughed more than anything else. I didn’t, however, find the shock factor to be all that surprising, nor did I appreciate the pacing. It makes sense to me now that this film had limited showings as it was unclear how successful it would be. That being said, it seems to be successful at the box office, even with those like myself who left feeling mixed about it.
I give “The Drama” 3 out of 5 on the spicy scale. While well performed, the story was lackluster and felt less like a lesson learned and more like a social experiment to see how the audience would respond. Give it a watch perhaps once it exits the theaters, but instead within the comfort of your own couch at home or with a group of friends, if you dare. Maybe afterward you can all spill your deepest darkest secrets too.
