They say love conquers all…even morality? Kristoffer Borgli’s The Drama, starring Zendaya and Robert Pattinson, provokes the boundary between love and morals and questions which overpowers the other, or if they must exist as one. The film follows engaged couple Emma and Charlie as they navigate the final days leading up to their wedding, from vow-writing to DJ-selecting and first dance-practicing. Craftful in its humor and cutting in its cruelty, the film will have you question constructions of moral hierarchy, and the border between intention and execution. Is it worse to have carefully thought-out a great evil or to have truly committed a lesser one? Beyond this, we are provoked to look within and consider growth and change. The film’s pinnacle shift occurs in the trailer-teased wine tasting dinner between the fiancés and the coupled maid of honor and best man. Under the false guise of the “safe space” to reveal the worst thing one has ever done, sparked by judgements of their crack-junkie DJ whom they discovered, it appears there was some news none could forgive. The playful banter of moments prior dissolves, and all subsequent humor comes at an ironic cost. Situated in subjective experience, the film’s visual and aural presence manipulates around suspicions and paranoias, of bonds broken or strengthened. I could not help but feel a deep longing to go back to before knowing, to the chemistry and foundation, but I think that is the beauty of the film itself – do we live a beautiful partial-truth or work with the raw and rocky, as long as it is real? As our minds dwell in search of explanation, we enter privileged flashbacks and oscillations between present and past versions of Emma. It’s hard to establish trust without the omniscience we are accustomed to in Hollywood tradition, seated within the instability of our betrothed’s choices, their perceptions of each other, and covert actions behind walled fronts as they rehearse the rest of their wedding responsibilities as usual. We watch the descent from mind-melded mutuality to masqueraded matrimony, with karmic and ironic unfortunate moments that pluck the remaining tie between them.
I had the privilege to view this film in theatres opening weekend, with Emma’s big reveal a complete mystery for the intended shock factor – for that I am grateful. In the true nature of drama, the inner lover of gossip within us all emerged through the rather spirited audience in my theatre, calling out to characters in their horror and embarrassment, their fear of judgement or projections of virtue. You’ll question even the ethics of your own laughter, and what it means to find humor in the dark awkwardness of this secret’s past. Most importantly is the probing to reflect on your own relationships, to the past lives of our platonic and romantic companions of which we’ll never truly know, and whether we must even know every version of past-selves in order to contend with each other in the present. Absurdity takes on a duality, displacing you from a familiar reality while also providing you with comedic refuge from that disorienting filmic reality. If you are into films that work not to satisfy, but to confront and provoke, then The Drama awaits you at the altar.