In today’s day and age, an excellent movie trailer is much rarer than an excellent movie. Trailers often give away far too much and are just plain bad. The Drama might have the best trailer (and a really fun promo video that has minor spoilers) since Longlegs – it is well-made, enticing, and most notable for what it does not give away. The premise: two couples chatting the night away while drunk, play a game where they each confess the worst thing that they’ve ever done. As they taken turns, one of them says something so horrifying that it alters each of their relationships forever, especially between the confessor Emma (Zendaya) and her fiancé Charlie (Robert Pattinson). The question that the trailer leaves you with is, what could sha have done or said to cause a reaction like that? Or, on an even more relatable level, what could someone say to you about their past that would cause you to question your love for them?
So, while this film is a perfect one to go in blind (or at least half-deaf), the “drama” itself is the twise that you won’t see coming even if you have seen the trailer. The reveal is shocking (and very controversial to say the least), and your own reaction might just be a Rorshach test in the same way the various characters in the movie have their own different reactions that is foreshadowed by their own worst stories, as well as their responses to the inciting incident of witnessing a DJ doing drugs.
What ensues is a Thomas Vinterberg-style of cascading illustrations of Newton’s third law, sufficiently infused with Safdie brothers stress levels. There are metaphors of the stress of relationships and especially the week of wedding planning. Martiage and relationships can be, on its face, an almost absurdly optimistic leap of faith. How well do you actually know the person that you are committing the rest of your life to? As a piece of art and introspection, the film will drop your jaw about 20 minutes in with the reveal, and then spend the next hour dragging it across the concrete floor from scene to scene.
Truth and lies both require context to give them meaning. Charlie is a liar from the get-go, almost habitually, from when he first tries to flirt with Emma, and yet it is Emma who is the most honest but she gets absolutely slagged and pilloried for it. How much of our rituals – weddings and speeches and dances – are performative and what is authentic? Director Kristoffer Borgli explores all of these rich themees with an impeccable tightrope act of tonal balancing from start to finish, in one of the most remarkable feats of filmmaking in years. Any single scene could have caused the film to swerve off the rails if nudged slightly too far in one direction, but the fact that he does so for an hour and 45 increasingly stressful minutes is almost unfathomable.
I should say, though, that this movie is not for everyone. It certainly cannot be recommended to everyone, not least because the film should come with a trigger warning, but for the fact that doing so would spoil the movie completely. So I am torn and can only warn you that every laugh (and there are many) will feel uncomfortable, but that is precisely the point. It’s not cringe played for its own sake, but a mirror held up to our society, and how we treat othershow we judge mental health and serious social issues and the increasing wave of cancel culture. Still, the theatrical experience was an unforgettable one (and the surprising sustained box office success suggests that it’s not just due to clever marketing but strong word of mouth) – you will lose track of the number of times you will gasp and look at the person next to you, or be utterly shocked at what is playing out onscreen. But each audience member receives it in a different way and you might be just as intrigued to see that what makes the person next to you laugh or be horrified may vary as well. But the film encourages you to take a second to reconsider before you start casting stones at others (while many impassioned social media takes on the film are currently gleefully ignoring this advice).
The Drama is smart, thoughtful, and despite how triggering it can be, the movie does not come off as mean-spirited or inappropriately light-hearted, but you can make your own judgements there. It is entertaining almost to a fault and presents interesting ideas about lying and do-overs being a form of kindness and compassion, and may even force you to rethink what empathy really looks like. It is the most impressively edited film in recent memory, and just when you think the ending is going to be satisfying enough, Borgli takes it up a notch to give a pitch perfect ending. I can’t promise how you’ll feel about this, but you will feel a lot of things, and that’s more than can be said about most movies these days.
Now playing in theatres.
