The Drama

Director: Kristoffer Borgli
Starring: Zendaya, Robert Pattinson, Alana Haim, Mamoudou Athie, Hailey Benton Gates, Sydney Lemmon, Hannah Gross, Anna Baryshnikov, Michael Abbott Jr., Zoe Winters, Damon Gupton, Jeremy Levick
Running Time: 105 min.
Rating: R

**This Review Contains Major Plot Spoilers**

★★★★ (out of ★★★★)

Writer/director Kristoffer Borgli's The Drama can be divided into two sections: Pre-secret and post-secret. And while the former encompasses only twenty minutes of the film's running length, it's the ideal entry point. In accurately capturing life's dark absurdities and the promising trajectory of a relationship between two seemingly likable characters, we're quickly won over. But the flashbacks charting this happy couple's tumultuous trip to the altar are even more valuable, laying the groundwork for a shocking twist that might not otherwise land as hard, especially since we haven't a clue just how bad things are about to get. 

The film shows why secrets are kept and how little we consider them until the cat's completely out of the bag. Some are inconsequential and others potentially earth shattering, forcing its keeper to run for cover in hopes they can somehow avoid the fallout. The latter kind drives this story, which explores how a single piece of information can change your perception of someone you thought you knew. And it doesn't matter when the event occurred or whether it has anything to do with who that person is now. Sometimes just knowing is damaging enough.  

When Charlie Thompson (Robert Pattinson) enters a coffee shop in Boston, he immediately notices Emma Harwood (Zendaya) sitting by the window and tentatively approaches, pretending to have already read the book she is. After Emma apparently ignores him, he'll return to apologize, only to learn she's deaf in one ear and hadn't heard anything he said. This mixup leads to their first date and eventually many more as we flash forward two years to discover they're set to marry within a week. 

Problems begin when they spot their wedding DJ smoking crack on the street, prompting a dinner discussion with married friends Mike (Mamoudou Athie) and Rachel (Alana Haim) over whether they should fire her. This leads to a game where all four reveal the worst thing they've ever done, concluding with a drunk Emma, whose disturbing confession infuriates Rachel and sends Charlie into a tailspin. Now suddenly reevaluating his feelings for Emma, he wants answers. But in attempting to reconcile the woman he fell for with a younger version capable of something like this, he spirals out of control, jeopardizing their impending nuptials.

Say what you will about Emma's secret, but it definitely exceeds expectations in terms of being awful enough to give anyone pause. Why she chooses to share it could be attributed to the alcohol, a moment of weakness or perhaps the false sense security that those she trusts wouldn't judge her. But this is on a whole different level. At fifteen, she planned to commit a school shooting, going so far as to practice in the woods with her father's gun (resulting in her hearing loss) and bring the weapon to school, eventually choosing not to go through with it. 

Due to a personal connection with gun violence, an outraged Rachel has the most visceral reaction to Emma's bombshell while Charlie's affected deepest, stammering and stumbling to come up with excuses for her in his own head. As if that isn't enough, Borgli goes even darker, actually showing flashbacks of an angry, disillusioned teen Emma.

By painting this powerful picture of a lonely, bullied girl who shares little in common with the adult she'll later become, we're reminded how far removed everyone eventually becomes from their high school selves. Of course, that does nothing to blunt the impact of watching an unrecognizable Emma (Jordyn Curet) fall into an online rabbit hole of gun violence and Columbine-inspired videos. 

As Charlie imagines firearms everywhere, he now looks and feels unsafe in his future wife's presence as this depressingly painful part of Emma's past returns to haunt her, prompting premonitions of wedding guests being gunned down on what's supposed to be the happiest day of their lives. But maybe the most unsettling of Borgli's hallucinatory sequences finds Charlie suddenly walking side by side with Emma's younger, rifle toting counterpart. 

After unsuccessfully attempting to laugh his fiancée's confession off, a neurotic Charlie probes for an explanation, which Emma begrudgingly provides, despite knowing none will suffice. Even worse, the reason she didn't go through with the shooting is purely circumstantial rather than the result of a sudden epiphany or change of heart. That comes later when her loneliness subsides and she takes a different path, accidentally stumbling upon the sense of purpose she didn't know she was looking for the whole time. 

If a changed Emma grew up and realized the horrific implications of what she could have done, that's a detail everyone's chosen to ignore, including Charlie, who's unnerved enough to conjure up a more comfortable explanation to ease his panic. But it doesn't work since he's more concerned with how Emma's secret reflects on him, especially with friends in his ear influencing his actions.  

A somewhat spineless Mike tries to appease all parties and stay out of wife Rachel's crosshairs when she vindictively hangs the information over Emma's head at her lowest point. And Alana Haim is so effectively detestable in the role, letting Rachel's hypocrisy shine through as she remains oblivious to the fact she not only initiated this game, but revealed a secret of her own that's arguably worse. 

"What will this say about me?" may as well be written all over Charlie's face as he desperately flails at work and home, reaching new lows with embarrassingly selfish and self destructive actions. But amidst all the lies he tells himself to move past this, he does hit on the profound truth that many people walk around with terribly evil thoughts they never act on. We're just spoiled by the benefit of not knowing what those are. 

Believing this, you'd almost think Emma's biggest mistake was sharing instead of taking a pass or just making something up during the game. Charlie understandably assumes her only excuse for not committing the unthinkable comes down to someone beating her to it, but that doesn't account for all the times before and since when she could have done this. And if we know anything about these shooters, it's that they'll rarely keep postponing the inevitable. They're the only person who can truly stop themselves, as Emma did by finding a community before it was too late. 

Of course, this isn't to say Emma's still not nursing some serious emotional scars, most of which are reopened with her confession. We see this with the panic attacks and how long it took her to openly acknowledge her feelings for Charlie. And it's telling that when both attempt to handle the DJ situation they swap their previously held positions, almost putting on a show to prove the other wrong.  

Pattinson has to walk a tightrope throughout, authentically registering the reactions of someone who sees a different person in front of him than the one he planned to marry. In actuality, little has changed except this new knowledge suggesting that everything should. It's clear Charlie can't handle any of it, but Pattinson brings dimensions to him that imply he has still as much growing up left to do as Emma. 

Zendaya's casting is a masterstroke almost on par with the work itself, requiring viewers to adjust their expectations of an actress whose character is on defense the entire time. At simultaneous moments we doubt Emma's sincerity, empathize with her plight and cringe at our own conflicted feelings toward a would be school shooter. It was a risk to play the role as brutally honest as she does, but one that pays off with a brilliantly tangled turn that stays with you long after the film concludes.

Whether it's Rachel's drunkenly cruel maid of honor toast, Charlie's embarrassing speech or the violent fall out from his humiliating office incident with Misha (Hailey Benton Gates), the wedding's a tense, entertainingly uncomfortable, cringe worthy disaster. And though the pair appear to be finished before their married life has begun, the final minutes suggest they're still in some strange, messed up way perfect for each other. It ends with a clever call back to when their endearingly goofy coffee shop meet cute offered no hint of the chaos to come. Now they've come full circle, ready for a reset. At this point, there's nothing to lose in giving it another shot, if you'll excuse the expression. 

With this, Borgli swings for the fences, delivering an effort just as audacious as his weirdly ambitious Dream Scenario, only far deeper. And in constructing an ethical crisis that'll have viewers obsessively debating what they'd do under similar circumstances, its wicked, subversive humor rests on two underappreciated actors giving their most complex performances yet. As thought provoking as it is controversial, The Drama may be the ultimate "what if," stretching the limits of forgiveness past its breaking point.