The Drama, starring Robert Pattinson and Zendaya as an engaged couple who are having a very challenging week before their wedding, is about as interesting as a movie can be without necessarily being a success. Tense, funny, and extremely difficult to watch if you are at all allergic to egregious public embarrassment, it’s a vision of American social life that half-says a lot of different things but lets the viewer decide for himself what themes ultimately prevail.
The writer and director, Kristoffer Borgli, is Norwegian, and the story’s conceit calls to mind a different Scandinavian director: Ruben Östlund and his 2014 movie Force Majeure. In that Nordic black comedy, a marriage hits the rocks during a family ski vacation when the father commits an act of extraordinary cowardice in the face of what turns out to be a phantom avalanche. The Drama is a similar story of a revelation and its relational aftermath, except in this case it’s a confession about a romantic partner’s past — and there’s a clock, the looming marriage, which requires the other partner to decide whether the confession changes everything.
Comments