Kristoffer Borgli’s The Drama is a darkly funny exploration about the moral lines we draw for ourselves and in our relationships. If love is all about sticking with someone through their best and worst days, what would be the dealbreaker for you?
Emma (Zendaya) and Charlie (Robert Pattinson) aren’t initially thinking about this question. They’re madly in love – so much it hurts – and they’re in the final stages of wedding prep. Within the week, they will be married to each other. The film creatively sets up the basic beats of their relationship through the set piece of Charlie writing his wedding speech. We’re taken through the first meeting, the first date, the first kiss, the first “I love you”. It’s a fantastic way of setting up the bones of this couple so we have a better sense of who they are and how they feel about one another. The soundscape is incredible, best exemplified during their meet-cute; the dolly zooms into Emma’s muffled world and the quick transitions back to the crowded atmosphere of the cafe that Charlie experiences highlights that sense of disconnect. They’re both in their separate bubbles, absolute strangers to each other, until Charlie makes the courageous push to strike up a conversation with Emma.
It is at a food tasting with their best man and maid of honour that things start to go off track. What begins as a fun conversation about worst deeds spirals into chaos and uncertainty after Emma’s revelation. Suddenly, Charlie has a whole new perspective of Emma, and becomes increasingly erratic as he tries to wrestle with the moral conundrums of what this means for them now. Can he knowingly tie himself to her in matrimony, when she had displayed such an ardent lack of moral sense all those years ago?
The acting is top-notch, as one would expect from a pairing like Zendaya and Robert Pattinson. There’s so much intricacy to each of their performances – Emma’s facial expressions after the revelation telegraph her regret and the sobering reality of her actions in the past, Charlie’s body language drawing more and more inward as he attempts to process this while feeling like his entire world is falling apart. It’s Zendaya’s performance that allows us to see that Emma isn’t the person she once was. She sees Charlie struggling to deal with the morality of it all so she gives him the information that he needs, meeting him in an uncomfortable space of truth even when it would be easier to gloss over it or make up lies to defend herself better. The discomfort of it all is written all over her face, and there are many moments when a lesser person would lose their patience and get angry, but she never does. Pattinson navigates all of Charlie’s interior complexities with such aplomb, his breakdowns and crash-outs portraying to us a man genuinely at his wits end, having to choose between his moral boundaries and the love of his life.
Also, massive applause for Zoe Winters who plays Frances the wedding photographer. She has a minor role in the film but absolutely steals the show. Somehow, she manages to convey with such authenticity the persona of a wedding photographer – the words, the facial expressions, the intrusive shooting even when things are falling apart – just sheer excellence.
The film is so discomforting mainly because of the humour it evokes. The word play in the dialogue, the visual references, Charlie having a whole freak-out when Emma’s just making a smoothie – we laugh heartily and then immediately feel guilty for laughing about something so inherently disturbing. In the cinema that I was in, it was all stunned gasps and loud exclamations as we processed the shitstorm brewing in front of us. The editing deserves praise as well, with spliced imagery to represent intrusions of thought acting as a kind of visual soliloquy, giving us insight into both Emma and Charlie’s interiors.
Where the film falters a little is in the resolution. Considering all the carnage the film sets up, the ending feels too tidy. It also doesn’t sit with me as strongly as the rest of the film, when it should really be the opposite.
At the end of the day, the movie isn’t justifying Emma’s moral lapses, and some people might not like the film because they think that’s the message. It isn’t. This is the message: what are you willing to accept if you truly and utterly love someone? Hypotheticals don’t work because relationships don’t exist in a vacuum. This is only something you can answer when you are in a relationship and you get to that point. Can you stay with them and love them through their moral failings? Like Emma and Charlie, you won’t know until you’re there – for better or for worse.
REVIEW SCORE: 3.5/5
