The Drama (2026) Review

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zmKcUa4Xxk

THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

Love really tests our patience and morals. You don’t think so? Look at A24’s The Drama.


PLOT


The 2026 film follows museum editor Charlie Thompson approach towards Emma Harwood, a literary editor who is deaf in her right ear after pretending to have read the same book. They’ve now been together for the past two years and are engaged to be married within one week’s time. Things get at their most awkward when Charlie & Emma spot the wedding djay Pauline (Sydney Lemmon) publicly do heroin. They share their discovery to the best man Mike & matron of honor Emma and debate on wanting to fire her over it, which only leads to an intense conversation for each of them to confess their worst actions: Mike talks about using a past girlfriend as a shield during a dog attack, Rachel admits to locking a ‘slow’ childhood neighbor in an abandoned trailer overnight, Charlie admits to cyberbullying a classmate so bad it made him move away and Emma takes the cake revealing her deafness comes from firing a practice rifle as she intended to do a school shooting. Rachel would be most horrified due to having a cousin named Samantha (Anna Baryshnikov) suffer from paralysis as a result of a shooting. Just as the tension kicks in between both sides, Emma drunkenly vomits during wine tasting. Only by morning does she get to fully explain to Charlie her past intentions came from depression and being surrounded by online communities centered on gun violence and chose not to go through with it because she understood how it affected communities, thus finding purpose among gun control activists. As they continue wedding preparations, a strain would truly begin with the couple as Emma gets nightmares and Charlie gets paranoid to the point where he can’t stop thinking about her secret, even trying to start over their meet cute is too much for them. With Rachel choosing to ignore Emma, she removes her from a work project and thus leads to her not wanting to go to the wedding. Charlie does make her reconsider and defends his fiance since he knows she’s not the only one in the world who’s had the same thoughts as her. When encountering Samantha for the first time, he awkwardly tells her she’ll love Emma. At work does Charlie make things hard for himself when asking his coworker Misha (Hailey Benton Gates) what would she do if her boyfriend Blake (Michael Abbott Jr.) were to plan a school shooting. When she responds with the answer being to call the police, it would make him break down and when she comforts him, they share a kiss but he stops himself from sleeping with her. The incident even makes him incapable of firing Pauline to the point where Emma does it. At the day of the reception does Rachel drunkenly give a passive-aggressive speech towards the newlyweds that derides them. This causes Emma to have so much anxiety that when she goes to the bathroom, she overhears Misha on the phone mention someone planning a school shooting. She tells Charlie what she heard and he tries to suggest ignoring it, but she chooses to confront her and she ends up admitting he kissed her. Charlie does assure that he stopped himself from straight up cheating, but it only leads to her looking at him coldly. Charlie then has a speech for the wedding and it goes horrible when he admits what happened between him & Misha while swearing to all guests that Emma didn’t do anything. Blake responds by attacking Charlie and Emma chooses to leave the altar. Leaving a bloody mess, Charlie would find her at the diner she wanted to go to after getting married and the film ends with the two tearfully reintroducing themselves.


THOUGHTS


With such a plain title, you can expect something to be cooking and that is exactly what goes down in the hands of writer/director Kristoffer Borgli. What can feel over the top does create a relatable atmosphere when it comes to setting up a wedding that’s supposed to be the biggest day of two people’s lives. The way it’s all put together with a somber Daniel Pemberton score, impressive cinematography by Arseni Khachaturan and sharp editing from both Borgli & Joshua Raymond Lee, the feeling of intensity couldn’t be any more. With those elements, I think this movie stands out for the right reasons in bringing a big discussion about morality and how there can be limits to unconditional love as well as forgiveness. This is what is loud & clear when following the dynamic pairing of Robert Pattinson & Zendaya as Charlie & Emma. Their chemistry is subpar for being an opposites attract because before their secrets came out, they loved each other for being different. Emma always adored Charlie for trying to be down to earth like her when he ends up being an overthinker, which does drive the plot as well. Knowing Emma’s secret does create a big debate on if she deserves forgiveness for past bad intentions and it’s been hard for me to say, no matter how sentimental Jordyn Curet shows off as young Emma, reflecting all the confusion she was feeling in how to cope with her past emotions before a solution came about. It’s definitely odd to discover Charlie chose to be a cyber bully and he doesn’t even bother to explain why he did so, but you can’t help respecting Emma for the fact she chooses to explain herself completely for him to understand her point of view back then, without condoning it. They both know they fucked up, which is why they didn’t want to bring it up in the first place and backs why they choose to continue trying to make it work even when some think they don’t deserve to be together. Mike & Rachel are another example of being a polar opposite couple because Mamodou Athie showed the former to be quite a pussy because I don’t think he tried hard enough to be a peacekeeper between both sides especially after he shared his secret. Then as for Alana Haim, she was an ultimate bitch as the latter because while her anger is valid, she is out of line trying to act like she’s better than Emma when she actually took action on her mistake in comparison. Blake was valid to get his hands on Charlie since he wasn’t gonna let himself being disrespected knowing he was cheated on, but I really couldn’t stand Emma chose to not get her hands on her since she was definitely instigating with her speech. She walked away however because she knew responding any further wasn’t gonna help anything whereas Charlie couldn’t help trying to patch things up even when it was already too late for everyone. Had they been around different friends, it’s hard to know if they were to react differently of what they’ve done. I don’t condone either how he chose to relieve his inner stress when it came to almost sleeping with Misha, but I also can’t blame him feeling full of inner conflict since he really has no one else to talk to of what he found out about the love of his life. Considering Charlie reached the restaurant first, it’s hard to tell if he was really expecting to see her there but I’m glad he still got there anyway because that was his last chance to keep whatever good is left. The fact they’re willing to keep starting over proves they do still love each other no matter how codependent it may appear. If they start over completely by surrounding themselves with different peers, then that’s the best happy ending they can get rather than complain of the past any further. In short, The Drama lives up to its name in being unapologetic in how catastrophic it could be to learn everything you know about the love of your life. If you got second thoughts about your relationships, this might be worth your while.