by Jeffery Rahming, Contributing Writer
Weddings are either the most stressful or the most wonderful day of your life. It’s a day you want to go perfectly, one that, hopefully, is just the beginning of many decades of continued romantic perfection. But more often than not, the days leading up to it can be an awkward, anxiety-ridden affair. The Drama is like being dropped into the most awkward, nerve-racking wedding party of all time. What if your deepest, darkest secret was revealed right in the middle of the most blissful week of your life? And what if the person who promised to love you forever can’t handle that secret?
The Drama follows Emma Harwood (Zendaya) and Charlie Thompson (Robert Pattinson) on the eve of their wedding. At first, awash in the blissful glow of their engagement, things take an awkward turn when, during dinner with the best man (Mamoudou Athie) and bridesmaid (Alana Haim), Emma reveals a disturbing truth about her teenage years. A truth that completely rocks the way her fiancé and friends see her. With the wedding only days away, Emma and Charlie struggle to drag themselves towards what should be the happiest day of their lives while trying to get over the huge elephant at the altar.
This is a great portrayal of the two greatest insecurities a marriage exposes: the fear your partner won’t love you if they truly knew you, and on the flip side, the fear of realizing you don’t fully know the person with whom you’ve decided to spend the rest of your life. I think many people have been on both sides of this coin enough to feel sorry for both protagonists. It’s the worst kind of situation with no clear good guy or bad guy, and that’s what makes it so interesting. What’s revealed at that dinner turns the whole wedding on its head. To reveal what it is would be a spoiler, but it’s bad enough to upset some moviegoers in real life. Emma’s reveal is the worst imaginable version of having an awkward teenage phase. And in the age of cancel culture, it’s hard to see the line between your personal life and your responsibility to greater social justice. It’s hard to argue that the past shouldn’t define us in a society sick of letting people off the hook.
It’s difficult to pin down a genre for this film; it toes the line between several. It could be considered a straightforward drama or a very dark romantic comedy, depending on your taste. But it could most reliably be classified as a panic attack simulator. This is definitely an “everything that could go wrong does go wrong” kind of movie. An Office-style cringe comedy but turn the awkward reality of it all up to eleven. Sometimes you laugh because there’s a genuine joke, and sometimes it’s because that’s the only thing you can do to break the tension. Scenes that make some people chuckle will make others squirm in their seats.
Zendaya and Pattinson have incredible chemistry, which makes the rupture between them all the more devastating. By minute one, all you want is for this couple to stay together, and it’s impressive how fast you become invested in their relationship. They perfectly portray the anxiety of a downward emotional spiral. You feel secondhand embarrassment for both of them multiple times. Athie and Haim are also great as their two best friends. Haim especially does a great job of playing the “insufferable but has a good point” character that this movie needs.
The Drama makes you think about love, forgiveness, and the existential unknowability of the people you think you know best. Given how sensitive some of the taboo topics covered here are, some would say the movie’s a little clumsy in its use of its themes. But that’s what I like about it. Everybody likes to pretend they’d do the right thing in tough social situations like this, but in reality, it’s often hard to tell who’s really in the right, and this has no easy answers as far as that’s concerned. Everybody who watches it will have a different experience. To some, this will be a very serious film; for others, a dark but hilarious comedy; to many, a two-hour cringe simulator; and, if you’re about to get married, a psychological horror film. It truly feels like overhearing someone’s private conversation or reading a diary entry. Incredibly awkward and invasive, but too juicy to ignore. I would recommend this to anyone who’s not getting married within the next 6 months.
Rating: Liked It
The Drama is now playing in theaters
You can read more from Jeffery Rahming, and follow him on Letterboxd