The Drama (2026) – Review

Quick Thoughts:

• Between Drib (2017) I’m Sick of Myself (2022), Dream Scenario (2023), and The Drama, director Kristoffer Borgli loves shaking things up. The guy is down to pursue tough subject material. 
• Never play “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done” with your friends a few days before you get married.
• Zendaya is incredible. She delivers a thoughtful performance that relies on physicality, silence, humor, and inner-turmoil.
• Cinematographer Arseni Khachaturan (Bones and All, The Idol) does some excellent work. It’s a gorgeous film to look at. 
• The broad humor, blunt-force humor, subtle humor, and pitch black humor create a unique blend of laughs
• Watching Robert Pattinson’s character deal with adversity for the first time in his life is fun. Pattinson does a fine unraveling while remaining likable
• The film exists to raise questions, not answer them. 
• It is very funny.

The Drama is a tough film to review because it would be a shame to spoil what happens during the 106-minute film. If you’ve watched a Kristoffer Borgli film, you won’t be surprised by the heady topics, dark humor, and bloody noses, but if you’re not familiar and simply want to see characters played by Zendaya and Robert Pattinson getting married, you’re going to have a squirm-inducing experience. The wild thing about The Drama is that it’s Borgli’s most commercial film in that it features traditional rom-com tropes (lies, sex, music, meet cute, dancing, weddings, writers), while tossing in a doozy of a revelation that knocks the film off its cozy rom-com axis. Gone are the cum farts (if you know, you know) featured in Dream Scenario, and the skin disease from I’m Sick of Myself, and instead we get a pampered museum curator named Charlie (Robert Pattinson) learning it’s not a good idea to play “what’s the worst thing you’ve ever done” several days before he marries his seemingly perfect partner Emma (Zendaya).

The film revolves around a couple having a relationship hiccup several days before their wedding. During a food tasting gone awry, the drunk Charlie and Emma play a game of “what’s the worst thing you’ve ever done,” with their friends Mike (Mamoudou Athie) and Rachel (Alan Haim). During the ill-timed game, a bomb is dropped the rest of the film leans into pitch-black comedy as Charlie and Emma navigate their new reality inside their comfy Boston home. In the press notes, Borgli stressed that The Drama is a relationship comedy that focuses on the ups and downs of a romantic relationship. In Borgli style, the film was never going to be The Wedding Planner or The Wedding Date; instead it’s loaded with dark impulses, flawed people, and an all-time twitchy performance from Pattinson, who is great as a wealthy British ex-pat who has seemingly never had to overcome any hard knocks in his life. 

A lot of praise needs to be heaped on Zendaya, who is pitch-perfect as a seemingly perfect person. In the film, she’s a dream girl who is perfect in the eyes of her fiance Charlie. However, she’s deeply flawed (like most humans), and carries a lot of weight on her shoulders. Whereas Charlie is a wealthy art curator who has never had a challenging moment in his life. Even when he lies to Emma during their first encounter inside a coffee shop, his square jaw and foppish stylings (think 1990s Hugh Grant) excuse his creeper behavior (it’s a rom-com world, so it’s normal there). Emma has seen some things, and Charlie has not, so his life spirals while his wedding looms. 

As a European, Borgli knew he could never solve major problems in the United States, so, instead of solving problems he asks the audience questions and hopes they will discuss and answer them. The characters in The Drama exist as avatars for discussion, and based on the conversation I had inside the theater after the screening, there will be plenty of discussions. Some will see the movie as edgelord nonsense, while others will engage in expansive conversations about love, understanding and acceptance. To be fair, the movie isn’t as insane as While You Were Sleeping, Wedding Crashers, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days or Overboard (1987) movies that only work because they exist in a rom-com world filled with likable actors lying to people. 

The movie looks gorgeous, and the cinematography by Arseni Khachaturan (Bones and All) makes everyone look wonderful. Also the costume design by A24 legend Katina Danabassis (Past Lives, Bodies Bodies Bodies, Lady Bird, C’mon C’mon, Materialists, Euphoria), that makes good-looking people even better looking, Finally, Zosia Mackenzie’s (Dream Scenario, Infinity Pool) production design work (and location scouting skills) utilizes Boston locations wonderfully and I’m certain many people will smile when they see The Passion of Anna poster on Charlie’s wall.

Final Thoughts – Enjoy, discuss and appreciate that this film exists.