Review: 'The Drama' has the trappings of an edgy rom-com, but is only a provocation that tries to make light of a dark topic
No, I’m not going to tell you what the big reveal is in “The Drama,” writer-director Kristoffer Borgli’s clumsily provocative movie in which an impending marriage hits a crisis point. I will say this much: From the moment the revelation is made, the movie goes off the rails, caught unsteadily between dark comedy and disturbing psychological drama.
The couple, Emma (Zendaya) and Charlie (Robert Pattinson), are a week away from their nuptials, and the strain of their wedding preparation — travel arrangements for future in-laws, rehearsals with the choreographer, worries about the DJ — is starting to show But they’re good-natured people, and apparently quite in love, so what could go wrong?
One night, as they’re tasting wedding menus and wine with their married friends, Mike (Mamoudou Athie) and Rachel (Alana Haim), the four get into a semi-drunken conversation around one question: “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?” Most everyone’s answers are slightly cringe-inducing, but nothing beyond the pale — until Emma tells them about something she did as a teen.
Like I said, I won’t repeat Emma’s answer, but it has the immediate effect of making Charlie think seriously about who he’s about to marry. It also had the effect of making me wonder whether Borgli had anything meaningful to say about the hot-button topic he was evoking, or whether he was just an obnoxious prankster who thinks he’s edgy or clever by making light of horrible things.
What follows in the movie shows Borgli (who made the Nicolas Cage comedy “Dream Scenario”) to be the prankster type. Where real humans might, I don’t know, postpone the wedding and book some intense therapy, Charlie and Emma try to carry on with the wedding. This becomes difficult when Emma tries to brush what happened under the rug, not seeing that Charlie is freaking out about what he’s learned. We see this because Borgli shows us, through flashbacks and imaginative daydream sequences, the worst-case scenarios playing out in Charlie’s head.
Emma and Charlie act, for much of the movie’s run, as if love will let them overcome this crisis — and, similarly, the movie acts like the audience’s love for these two charming romantic leads will overcome the obstacles Borgli’s off-kilter choice has created. They’re good, but you feel like they’re being held hostage by a premise that doesn’t deserve all this attention. This is particularly true of Zendaya, who doesn’t get to perform her character’s most emotional scenes, as Borgli has cast another actor, Jordyn Cruet, to play a teen Emma in flashbacks.
The central conundrum of “The Drama” is that it raises a topic that’s so serious that it’s impossible to make funny — and then doesn’t want treat that topic with any seriousness. The awkward spaces Borgli’s “jokes” inhabit just sit there, as if the filmmaker never considered how awful it would be to laugh in those moments.
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‘The Drama’
★★
Opens Friday, April 3, in theaters everywhere. Rated R for language, sexual content, and some violence, including scenes involving gun violence and intense disturbing themes. Running time: 106 minutes.