Spoiler & Trigger Warning: This review contains major plot spoilers for The Drama and mentions of gun violence that may be triggering for some readers.
A24’s newest film, The Drama, hit theaters on April 3rd. The psychological comedy, directed by Kristoffer Borgli, centers around fiancés Emma, portrayed by Zendaya, and Robert Pattinson as Charlie. It follows the couple in the tense days leading up to their wedding, where, after going around the table admitting the worst thing each player had done, Charlie struggles to cope with Emma’s upsetting past.
The film’s promotional materials kept Emma’s confession a secret, and since the first trailer was released, audiences like me eagerly waited to learn what atrocity she could’ve committed. Emma reveals in the film that, as a teenager, she planned a school shooting that she didn’t go through with.
I enjoyed how nuanced The Drama was and how much it made me think.
It addresses relevant topics like the fetishization of gun violence and performativity in social morality. These gripping themes — alongside incredible performances from Zendaya and Pattinson — jaw-droppingly shocking comedy, and a tense editing style and score made for a thrilling viewing experience.
I’ve seen it twice now, and I think I can say that others in my theaters also had the same experience. There was constant laughter and gasping. You could feel the anticipation and secondhand embarrassment rising off the audience during the film’s climax. I looked around and saw people with their heads in their hands and pulled up to the edge of their seats. I had one of the best in-the-car post-movie debriefs ever after my latest viewing. It’s the ability to create moments like these that makes me love a film.
I have not been able to get The Drama out of my head. The questions it asks its audience, and the characters who feel so real that they show some of the ugliest sides of humanity, have been ruminating in my head.
Fetishization of Gun Violence
Emma reveals to Charlie and their married friends Mike (Mamoudou Athie) and Rachel (Alana Haim) that she planned a school shooting when she was fifteen. Emma spends the next day, amidst vomiting episodes and panic attacks, detailing her past to Charlie. She explains that she had little stability as a child; she was a military brat who moved frequently, had no friends, was bullied at school, and was depressed. It also appears from the flashbacks that her parents didn’t supervise her at all and were never around, but she found a source of attention on Internet forums dedicated to glorifying guns and school shooters. She admits to feeling a sense of intrigue by what she saw, stating that she was interested in the aesthetics more than anything else.
Witnessing Emma’s teenage fascination with mass shootings is jarring. I reacted similarly to Charlie when Emma said she was intrigued — with discomfort and fear. When Charlie goes to the museum he works at as an art curator, the next day, he’s startled upon finding an art book depicting women in lingerie brandishing military-grade guns. There’s a moment later in the film where Charlie flips through the book again, but this time he pictures Emma as the model. He fantasizes about Emma in her bra and underwear, posing sexily with a massive gun while perched on their bed.
The film juxtaposes teen Emma’s Internet forums and Charlie’s art book as two ends of the spectrum of gun imagery. The art book is a literal fetishization, associating female sexuality catered to the male gaze with guns. I think that the Internet forum is a form of fetishization as well, as it romanticizes the image of a mass shooter and thereby glorifies gun violence to Emma. The viewers of both mediums are meant to see the gun as an accessory for — like Emma said — an aesthetic. By showing two pieces of media that fetishize guns in different ways, the film forces the audience to question what makes a depiction of a gun “okay.” Where do we draw the line between socially acceptable and unsafe? Art or disturbing? I think the film argues that they both have a dangerously influential power.
This question has prompted me to re-examine the gun-related imagery I’m used to seeing in media, and think critically about what messages they unconsciously communicate. Images of super spies, like James Bond, or superheroes, like Black Widow, come first to my mind. These characters are suave, sexy, and enticing, but the main source of their allure comes from the power they have from their ability to inflict harm with a gun. These glamorized depictions of guns, like Charlie’s art book, contribute to the normalization of gun violence. It shows how easily the ‘aesthetic’ can be interpreted in horrific ways, resulting in the kinds of Internet forums where teen Emma, depressed and lonely, finds herself manipulated into considering violence.
Weaponizing Moral Superiority
Before Emma makes her confession, Charlie, Mike, and Rachel also share the worst things they’ve ever done. Mike and Charlie’s confessions are minor in comparison; Mike once used his ex-girlfriend as a so-called ‘human shield’ when attacked by a wild dog, and Charlie reluctantly admitted to cyberbullying someone as a teen.
Rachel shares a story from when she was younger, where she locked a mentally disabled neighborhood child in a closet. When he began to panic, she ran away and lied when authorities asked if she had seen him. She says that the police launched a search for the child that lasted overnight. The group, including Rachel herself, all laugh off the story.
Emma’s confession initially gets the same reaction from Charlie and Mike until Rachel begins to yell and condemn her.
I’ve noticed that the most popular topic of conversation regarding the film online has been Rachel and her confession. I’ve seen TikTok videos claiming that Rachel’s worst thing was equally as bad, if not worse than Emma’s. These accusations are based on the fact that Rachel did do something bad and had no remorse, whereas Emma didn’t actually do anything and felt deeply guilty. The comment sections of these videos call Rachel “the true villain” and say that she “pissed [them] off.” I think debating who is ‘worse’ than who is exactly the kind of discourse that the film positions itself against, since that kind of finger-pointing is the basis of the conflict.
There’s a line at the beginning of the film that I keep thinking about. When Emma and Charlie are practicing their first dance, Emma is hesitant because she feels that having a pre-planned dance is performative. Their choreographer tells her that a wedding is inherently performative. In this, the film explores the role of performativity and how it shapes our understanding of morality. Rachel hates Emma after her confession: she refuses to talk to her and almost doesn’t go to the wedding, and when she eventually attends, she’s overtly passive-aggressive.
However, even before Emma’s confession, it’s clear that Rachel doesn’t treat Emma as a friend should. She nitpicks the entirety of Emma’s wedding speech and makes backhanded comments towards her, telling her that she looks ugly when she cries. It’s completely valid for Rachel to be upset and horrified by Emma’s confession, but I do believe that some of her vehemence is fuelled by that initial dislike. It feels like Rachel weaponizes moral superiority, using her discovery that Emma’s a ‘bad’ person to justify hating her and forcing others to hate her as well.
While I disagree with online discussions about which character is ‘worse,’ I think that they address an important question that the nature of the confessions brings about. While everyone else shared a concrete action, Emma shared a thought. Are actions or thoughts more damning? Is a thought enough to make you a ‘bad person’? No matter what the answer is, I think the film argues that using a person’s moral character as a social chess piece is harmful and unproductive, speaking to the complex nature of morality in itself.
Being A ‘Good Person’ And My Interpretation of The Ending
A majority of the film follows Charlie on his mental journey through discovering Emma’s past, reckoning with it, and having to decide if he can forgive her. I believe the conflict of his arc is that he does eventually forgive Emma, but he agonizes over needing to feel like they are both still ‘good’ people. His explosive conversation with his co-worker Misha, portrayed by Hailey Gates, embodies this struggle.
Charlie proposes his situation to Misha as a hypothetical, and he’s desperate for her to say that she would forgive her boyfriend under the same circumstances. He asks her, if she knew for certain that her boyfriend had changed, if she would forgive him. To me, this indicates that Charlie does believe Emma has grown and changed. He has already forgiven her internally, but his need for external validation hasn’t been satisfied. He urges Misha to agree with him so he can be content knowing him and Emma are still considered good people. When Misha doesn’t give him this confirmation, he blows up.
Charlie’s conundrum is related to themes about moral superiority. Is it up for others to decide if we’re good or bad people, or are we the ones who get to decide that? Whose judgment about us matters more, ours or others’? Charlie, who has already made up his mind, spirals in searching for outside validation. This chaos drives him to commit his true ‘worst thing,’ which is cheating on Emma with Misha in a moment of regret.
Emma’s suggestion that Charlie and she ‘start over’ is a recurring event. When Charlie first introduces himself to Emma, and he fumbles, she encourages him to start over. When Charlie is panicking about Emma’s confession, she asks if they can forget it and start over. Emma has already done her worst thing, and therefore knows that rumination isn’t helpful. She’s learned through experience that the only way to grow from your mistakes is to accept them and move forward. I think this lived understanding is why she can so easily suggest starting over. However, Charlie hasn’t committed his worst thing yet, and so he fixates on Emma’s to try to ‘solve’ it.
The film ends after Charlie and Emma’s disastrous wedding, where they’re both emotionally and physically in shambles. Charlie goes to their favorite diner and watches as Emma comes in, orders food, and sits at his table to introduce herself. Emma gives Charlie a chance to start over again. Charlie, now having committed his worst thing by cheating on Emma, finally learns what she has known all along. He can finally agree to start over, and I interpreted the moment as radical empathy and a promise to help each other learn and grow together from their future mistakes.
The Drama feels like a film I could watch one hundred times and still find new details to analyze or points of view to consider. No matter what answers a viewer has to the moral questions presented, or what they believe the ending means, the film is bound to spark conversation, and that’s what I loved about it.