The Drama

One of my favourite scenes in Sam Mendes’ Revolutionary Road (2008) – starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet – is when April (Winslet) greets Frank (DiCaprio) for breakfast, after a colossal fight the night before, during which things were said that neither can ever take back. As she (much to his surprise) performs her part of a ‘supportive’ wife, while he riffs on his role as the polite, clueless breadwinner of the family, the quiet breakfast – a symbol of suburban bliss – begins to feel suffocating and emotionally claustrophobic. Both Winslet and DiCaprio act the hell out of this scene, playing the wounded, flawed couple trying to deflect from the unpleasantness of their once-loving marriage, hoping things would get back to normal with time.

Long before The Drama unveils its central conflict, the filmmaking clues us in on where we’re headed. Kristoffer Borgli’s film opens with a Hitchcockian closeup of Zendaya’s ear. The camera stalks and skulks. The ambient sound fades in and out. Robert Pattinson spies, stammers, lies. It’s a meet-cute, but the tone is just shy of psychological horror. With days to go for their wedding, Charlie (Pattinson) and Emma take their friends Mike (Mamoudou Athie) and Rachel (Alana Haim) to dinner. Several drinks in, they stumble into a truth game: each person will tell the group the worst thing they’ve ever done. Charlie’s and Mike’s confessions are fairly innocuous; Rachel’s is more shocking (locking a developmentally challenged child in a shed overnight). All the while, Emma looks distinctly uncomfortable. But she’s too drunk to lie, and admits that, when she was 15, she’d planned a school shooting, opting out only at the last moment.

The Drama, written and directed by Kristoffer Borgli, certainly lives up to its title—but not in a way that works to its advantage. There is no shortage of drama here, but what value does it hold when you feel absolutely nothing for the people at the center of it?

Modern-day romance is complex. Gone are the days when boy-meets-girl and they fall in love form the ideal rom-com in Hollywood. An entire generation may have grown up on light frothy rom-coms that Hollywood used to churn out in a dozen back in the day. But that very generation has now grown up and is navigating complexities in life. And thus, Kristoffer Borgli’s latest dramedy, The Drama, may resonate with many of its viewers. Featuring Zendaya and Robert Pattinson in the lead, Borgli’s film explores love in the time of violence, accessibility and wokeness.

Emotional and behavioural upheavals linked to acts contemplated, mishaps suffered, tragedies faced and choices made or evaded (most of them in the past) threaten to derail an impending wedding in The Drama, a darkly absurdist and discomfiting film written and directed by Norwegian filmmaker Kristoffer Borgli. Starring Zendaya and Robert Pattinson as two deeply in love but massively conflicted individuals, The Drama is imbued with the Nordic spirit of moral inquiry of the kind that characterizes a Ruben Ostlund take on human foibles or a Thomas Vinterberg deep dive into ethical indiscretions that can send people and communities into a tailspin.