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"The Drama"Written and Directed by Kristoffer BorgliStarring Zendaya, Robert Pattinson, Alana Haim, Mamoudou AthieRated R for language, sexual content, and some disturbing thematic materialRuntime: 106 minutesRelease Date: April 3, 2026
Final Thought
Final Thought
The Drama is a great film about the limits of love in America that could have only been made by a non-American filmmaker.
The Drama is a great film about the limits of love in America that could have only been made by a non-American filmmaker.
Rating
Rating
★★★★.5 / 5
★★★★.5 / 5
Logline:
Logline:
From A24:
A happily engaged couple is put to the test when an unexpected turn sends their wedding week off the rails.
Review: Europe Does (White) America Better
Review: Europe Does (White) America Better
Perversion, in its most basic sense, means to be improper, incorrect, turned away from what is right or good, or to behave in an unorthodox or abnormal manner. When I think of perversion in film, I think of Pedro Almodóvar. A world-renowned Spanish director, he is most known for his collaborations with actors Penélope Cruz and Antonio Banderas, but as one of my favorite directors, I know him to be one of the boldest, most artistically assured filmmakers of all time.
His stories are challenging - Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down focusing on a woman falling in love with her kidnapper, the Academy-Award-winning Talk to Her confronting a male nurse who sexually assaults and impregnates a coma patient, or Matador showcasing a relationship between two people who are aroused by death - but the moral dilemmas they present are endlessly fascinating. Almodóvar is also gay, and many of his films involve queer characters. Unfortunately, nobody’s gay in this, but Kristoffer Borgli’s new A24 feature The Drama will push audiences to their boundary of comfortability, like Almodóvar’s films.
The Drama follows Emma and Charlie (Zendaya and Robert Pattinson) in the week leading up to their wedding. Everything is perfect. As they write their speeches, they realize neither of them can condense their two years of love into two minutes on the mic. At a wine tasting with their couple friends, Rachel and Mike (Alana Haim and Mamoudou Athie), they play a game of "what's the worst thing you've ever done?" During this game, however, Emma confesses a secret so vile (to the modern American conscience) that it alters her friendship with Rachel and Mike and calls her marriage to Charlie into question.
I’d posit that Borgli is a student of Almodóvar. Most of the Spanish auteur’s filmography revolves around impossible, extreme situations to explore the limits of love. I would generalize this statement to say most European filmmakers are less shy about taboo than American filmmakers. Kristoffer Borgli is Norwegian, yet this film tackles a uniquely American dispute. This film is clearly made from a non-American perspective, and I believe that to be the only way this story would’ve been made. Americans are sensitive to extremity, and thus, and American writer/director wouldn’t have been as lenient with their humor as this.
I actually don’t expect the majority of American audiences to like this, maybe even less than Dream Scenario, a film I liked but wanted more from. The surrealist tone and style he employs in that film and, to my knowledge, his others, is more muted in The Drama, but it works for this story. The few dream-like flourishes, and, in truth, the whole film, are particularly well edited - the opening sequence and credits stuck with me as I felt every character was perfectly introduced and every cut was perfectly timed.
I will say it is odd that the marketing so far has done nothing to advocate for fixing the issue. It’s understandable that they’d like to preserve mystery around the story, but it can’t help but feel a bit irresponsible to not have an apparent awareness, especially since it’s such a tense, contemporary issue. I feel like this should’ve done the festival route, premiered along with a press conference on the blue wall where they can discuss the nuances of this complicated topic.
Almodóvar is also interesting because he, more so than many other European filmmakers, embraces the beauty, color, and more lighthearted elements of these dark situations. This is why he comes to mind when I contemplate The Drama. As much as this film is a fucked-up love story, Borgli has crafted a satire, trolling America for the simple fact that this is a plausible dilemma for late millennials/early gen-z today.
Zendaya’s Emma is the same age that someone who might’ve been radicalized by the events at Virginia Tech, Northern Illinois, or Sandy Hook would be now. She’s also the same age as someone who knows better and has learned and grown.
Left to Right: Mamoudou Athie and Alana Haim in "The Drama"
I’m curious to see the response to this aspect and converse with audiences to see if they feel that she is actually reformed or if she’s lying. Will people (America) be willing to give her (a Black woman) grace? Borgli has, quite possibly, crafted the craziest “she’s a 10, but…” of all time.
An unfortunate hallmark of European directors, though, is they don’t know how to write Black people. This is not to say Zendaya’s character is poorly examined. This is to say that if Borgli were American, or at least had Black people around him, he would know that that’s some white people shit. Black people don’t do that. Especially a Black girl… who is close to her father… who is in the military… come on now. In a scene where she, as a teenager, argues that “women do it too,” the film makes clear that it only cares about her perspective as a woman, not a black woman, thus making her blackness feels ornamental.
Left to Right: Robert Pattinson and Zendaya in "The Drama"
I’d venture to say the film isn’t that concerned with her psyche at all, which works to the film's benefit and detriment. It’s detrimental for obvious, internal conflict reasons, but beneficial because it helps the film zero in on its nuanced subject. This is not a film about a(n almost) ****** *******: this is a film about a person whose perspective of his own love is changing.
Robert Pattinson plays this character very well, a man who, under the worst circumstances, must choose whether or not to derail his entire love and life. He and Zendaya have good chemistry and they play off of each other well. Zendaya performs her character well, too, though her character's awkwardness and slight emotional vulnerability feels a bit typical to her at times. The supporting cast, Athie, Haim, and co., are fine, but the star of this film is clearly the concept. There's (unfortunately) not much more to it than that.
The film poses an insanely strong, pointed, and difficult what-would-you-do scenario and smartly provides a multitude of opinions. Some of the dialogue feels a bit on-the-nose, almost as if the film is trying to get ahead of the inevitable discourse, but it works nonetheless. There’s also a particular interest in a greater American hypocrisy surrounding the situation, funneled through Haim’s character, that I appreciated. Certain moments even elicited snaps from some of my audience members.
I’m more impressed and intrigued by the situation of The Drama than anything else. In it, you have an extreme dark comedy about violent internet culture in America, but other than that extremity, you have a film about the limits of love and whether or not one can decide if love stops. It’s like that moment at a party when someone says something fucked-up that kills the vibe but you can’t stop thinking about what they meant. All of the rah-rah about this movie is clearly going to be about that one huge thing, but regardless of the scenario, the message, as I read it, to apply to life is this: When you commit to loving a person, remember that you’re loving a human, for better or for much, much worse.
Viewed on 4/2/26 at Universal Cinema AMC at Citywalk Hollywood
Published on 4/3/26
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