★★½ (2½ out of 4)
Most boy-meets-girl romcoms don’t need spoiler warnings. But the exception is “The Drama,” a cringey, squirmy anti-romcom in which Zendaya and Robert Pattinson face their impending “I do/I do” like a march down death row. It all starts when an adorable Boston couple, Emma (Zendaya) and Charlie (Pattinson), meet up with their married friends, wisecracking maid of honor Rachel (Alana Haim) and cool best man Mike (Mamoudou Athie), to taste test the fancy dishes they plan to serve at their wedding reception.
Simple enough, that is until the wine (yuck, it’s pink!) starts flowing and Rachel pokes the bull by suggesting they all play a game of “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?” Rachel has a lulu—she once locked a mentally challenged boy in a closet because he wouldn’t stop screaming. But then Emma steps up and blows the game out of the water.
There’s a bracing charge to the premise of turning a farce about wedding jitters into a deep-dish think piece about the limits of condoning violence, real or imagined.
But wait, before that Norwegian writer-director Kristoffer Borgli—yup, the dude known for going to extremes in “Sick of Myself” and “Dream Scenario” in which Nicolas Cage played a guy who keeps popping up in other people’s dreams —has shown us how Charlie first hit on Emma. He sees her reading through the window of a coffee bar and pretends to have read the book himself. A maybe harmless lie that still goes to character. We also learn that Emma is deaf in one ear—save that info for later.
Then Borgli cuts from the meet-cute to all the steps—hanging, laughing, boffing—that lead to the engagement of Charlie, a museum curator, and Emma, a bookstore clerk. We watch Charlie practice his wedding vows as he and Emma rehearse their wedding dance. So far so typical romcom fluff. This all takes us back to the dinner in which Emma makes her confession. Beep! Beep! Spoiler ahead. See the movie and then come back.
It turns out that Emma, bullied at 15 (we get flashbacks), seriously considered a school shooting against her tormentors. She had the rifle, the intent and a confession video. That she never carried out her plan cuts her no slack from her freaked-out friends. And Charlie is so unnerved that he sends this comedy spiraling into dark places no one saw coming.
Pattinson catches every twitch and tremor that reveals Charlie as a man coming apart. And Zendaya, as she did in “Challengers” and does in her Emmy-winning role on “Euphoria,” fearlessly catches Emma in all her broken places. Both could not be better—they’re genuine movie stars who can also really act.
It’s Brogli who hotfoots away from the scarier implications of his movie, notably how Emma’s sex and race might figure into the reactions she’s getting from the people she’s closest to. As Emma runs from the past that Charlie wants desperately to understand, laughs prove the easier way out.
The comic potential of the movie is certainly better realized than its half-hearted attempts at social commentary. And that’s a shame. There’s a bracing charge to Borgli’s premise. “The Drama” deserves points for the daring of its concept, turning a farce about wedding jitters into a deep-dish think piece about the limits of condoning violence, real or imagined.
“The Drama,” from classy boutique studio A24 (“Moonlight,” “Everything Everywhere”), is built to get audiences debating hard about what would you do if you were Charlie. Done. And Pattinson twists himself into knots of indecision, both hilarious and heartbreaking. But a more pertinent question might be, what would you do if you were Emma? Would you consider Charlie’s reaction to your honest confession a marriage deal breaker? Zendaya brilliantly lets Emma’s emotions wash across her face, but the script abandons her to wedding comedy clichés.
The truth is that “The Drama” is half a must-see movie. It ducks its most potent provocations, leaving us with a comfort-food when we want to see these characters let it rip. Still, I’m predicting “The Drama” will be a date-night hit. Couples will show up to see what all the fuss is about. The real fireworks will start at home. I’d call that a fair trade-off.