Mix gorgeous cinematography, jaw–dropping acting, disturbing humor, scripted hypocrisy, and moral ambiguity and you’ll get Kristoffer Borgli’s newest romantic–dramedy, The Drama: an intense, uncomfortable, and confrontational film that succeeds by making its audience ruminate on the unconditional nature of love.
The A24 film follows engaged couple Emma (Zendaya) and Charlie (Robert Pattinson) one week away from their wedding. In the midst of all the excitement—writing vows, taking dance lessons, and sampling reception menus—a dark and troubling secret is revealed on a double date with their friends, Rachel (Alana Haim) and Mike (Mamoudou Athie), destabilizing the happy couple in an already volatile time.
Even if you haven’t heard of the film, you’ve probably come across its marketing. The Drama’s promotional strategy leaned fully into the film’s wedding aesthetic, doubling down on A24’s new strategy of building entire campaigns and aesthetics around a film’s premise—seen previously with Marty Supreme. No punches were pulled—Zendaya served as a witness for real–life marriages, A24 created The Drama Wedding Chapel where couples could get married, and producers even posted an engagement announcement for the fictional couple in the Boston Globe. Sending out formal wedding invitations to AAA24 members (A24’s paid membership) made the marketing feel participatory and almost personal. Around Valentine’s day, A24 launched the website charlieandemmaforever.com, an official RSVP portal for Emma and Charlie with engagement photographs, ceremony logistics, and a travel guide to Boston (where the film is set). These over–the–top attempts to engage the audiences made the movie feel like an event.
But after seeing The Drama and discovering Emma’s major revelation, some claim that the marketing felt too misleading. It may have seemed transparent, but it belies a false sense of understanding about the film’s essence and its characters—their charisma, kindness, and empathy. This all gets overturned when viewing the film and being forced into the same moral dilemmas as its protagonists. In promotional materials for the film, A24 emphasized romance while downplaying the film’s engagement with violence and dark comedy. Trailers should not reveal everything, but this film is a special case: the subject material warrants a little more preparation. Avoiding the central conflict preserves the impact, but it also risks misleading viewers about the kind of experience they are walking into.
Others argue that aspects of the promotion were spot on. The scenes picked for the trailer were intentionally chaotic and awkwardly uncomfortable, hinting at the pandemonium which warrants the film’s R rating. Take, for example, the seemingly idyllic promo pics—Zendaya’s lowered head and both of their red eyes imbue something sinister, not to mention the positioning of Zendaya’s hand as if she’s pointing a weapon at Pattinson’s head. It’s emblematic of the film’s main themes … but only if you know what to look for.
The film’s “big twist” arrives around the 20–minute mark, when during a game of “What’s the Worst Thing You’ve Ever Done?”, Emma drunkenly reveals that she planned a conspiracy to commit a mass school shooting at the age of 15. The reason she didn’t follow through with it? Someone else committed a mass shooting the same day and Emma didn't want to be outshined. The others are not exempt from scrutiny, though; Mike used his ex–girlfriend as a human shield from an aggressive dog and Rachel locked her neighbor with an intellectual disability in an abandoned RV closet overnight. All of these admissions are awful, yet the only person universally condemned is Emma. Rachel calls her a psychopath and berates her for the mere thought of such an atrocity. Although teenage Emma didn’t follow through with the shooting, the idea and intent are enough for the other couple to hold her in contempt, leaving Charlie grappling with this grim revelation of his true love’s past.
The film itself is undoubtedly beautifully crafted, balancing style, performance, and tone in a way that feels both striking and unsettling. Visually, the use of color stands out immediately, especially the contrast between soft beige neutrals and a recurring, almost aggressive, red accent, which feels symbolic without being obvious. The sound design is just as effective: classical violin bursts appear at unexpected moments, almost like cues from a horror film, creating tension even in otherwise quiet scenes. The recurring motif of “I Want To Lay With You” by Shira Small is another highlight, tying into the characters’ emotional progression. Emma plays it to cheer Charlie up multiple times throughout the film before the revelation. When Charlie finally unravels at home after his disastrous wedding, that is the song he plays, and its emotional memory gives the song a deeper melancholic meaning with this reappearance.
Additionally, the script and performances work in tandem to create an unequivocally morbid tone. Zendaya’s character is insecure but emotionally controlled, while Pattinson brings a remarkable range, from subtle shifts to breakdowns. The writing is brilliant—sharp, uncomfortably hilarious, and unexpectedly dark. One unforgettable moment came immediately after the reveal, when the couple meets with the wedding photographer as she emphasizes all the people they are going to “shoot” during the wedding. That mix of humor and discomfort gives the film its edge and leaves audiences something to think about.
The Drama is the first of three 2026 films that Robert Pattinson and Zendaya worked on together (the other two being The Odyssey and Dune: Part Three), and such celebrity–driven marketing clashes with its focus on heavy, trauma–inducing themes. As Jackie Corin, a 2018 Parkland shooting survivor and March For Our Lives co-founder, notes in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter: “[Pattinson and Zendaya] bring an enormous amount of attention and cultural weight. … That can be a real asset if the project is handled with care, but it also means that the message reaches audiences who might not otherwise engage with the issue. It raises the stakes.” However, in trying to prompt audiences to consider gun violence as a squeamish hypothetical, the film seems to move past and normalize the idea of it far too quickly. It’s a loaded subject to drop on viewers, especially when the dark and twisted humor starts so quickly after the reveal.
Out of this troubling portrayal of violence emerges the film’s surprisingly straightforward central question, especially given the context in which it is posed: To what extent is love unconditional, or is it even unconditional at all?
The movie says it isn’t—at least not in the way people like to imagine. The story is uncomfortable from every angle, but especially when it risks suggesting that extreme violence should be forgiven for the convenience of carrying out a wedding. In some ways, however, the lack of neat moralizing by Borgli is perversely effective. He could have given the audience more guidance in processing it, but by refusing to neatly condemn Emma, the film forces viewers to go through the mental torment alongside Charlie. What the film hints at is so unbelievably simple that it’s funny: people are complicated, and so is love. Some actions are beyond understanding, some may be unforgivable, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the person behind them is unworthy of compassion.
Charlie, despite everything, tries to understand Emma rather than immediately demonize her, embodying a kind of love based in empathy rather than judgment. The film critiques how easy it is to judge without reflection, especially when one’s own actions are also flawed, seen with Rachel. Of course, the level of intimacy and expectation for forgiveness is different in the contexts of being a fiancee versus a friend, but The Drama shows that true love (whether platonic or romantic) isn’t about excusing harm, but separating the person from the action and trying to forgive them even when you can’t justify what they’ve done.
The Drama centers around love, guilt, moral judgement, and forgiveness, but it refuses to provide clean answers. It forces you to sit with moral conflict instead of resolving it, leaving both its characters and its audience unsettled. By the end, the question is no longer “What happened?”, but “What's justified?”—and whether you would answer honestly if someone asked you, “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?”
