By Aya El-Djoundi | Special to the NB Indy
“The Drama” is an American romantic black comedy written and directed by Kristoffer Borgli and released in the US by A24. It stars Zendaya and Robert Pattinson as a happily engaged couple whose relationship is tested by an unexpected revelation during the week before their wedding.
You might call “The Drama” a controversial film with controversial topics that evoke uncertain thoughts, but I fear we are missing the true points of the film: performance, psychological perception, and trauma.
The marketing of the film made me think one thing, while the actual film made me feel something different. I knew there was going to be drama (the film’s title gives it way).
The film starts off with a cute rom-com vibe, but then drastically changes into a psychological dramedy.
Emma (played by Zendaya) has a deep and personal secret, but we don’t know it yet.
We are sitting in a room with Emma, Charlie (Robet Pattinson), Rachel (Alana Haim), and Mike (Mamoudou Athi), when Emma drops a bomb on us. That scene shifts the vibe of the movie, opening the unexpected turn in the road. It made me wonder why did the film put us in this position? I was in shock like the rest of Emma’s friends, totally taken aback by what she just said.
If I was writing the script, why bring up this topic? Something so prominent and controversial. But that’s how the film gets your attention, forcing people to talk and others to think. I thought and then did some research. It made me realize that the film isn’t about school shootings, it’s about the subjectivity of forgiveness or how quick we are to shut someone down without hearing an explanation.
I sat on it for about a week and finally I thought, “Emma didn’t actually do anything to hurt anyone. But everyone else somehow did in a way.”
This was one of those films where it got me thinking about the what ifs, about human psychology and their limits. Not only just about the characters in the film, but also the people in the movie theater.
This film raises the question of how far is too far? I think this film makes you ask what does unconditional love really mean? How accepting are we of our loved ones? Where does love end and judgment begin? How does one thing someone says change our entire perception of them? Can we handle certain parts of other people, or certain parts of ourselves? Is it too much to ask for forgiveness?
This movie argues that people are too quick to judge. Everyone deserves to explain themselves, right? Every time I hear one of these stories on the news, I think “Why do people wake up and decide to hurt other people? What’s the motivation?”
I’ve always been curious about the darkness of the human mind. We all have a tiny section in our minds where we don’t want to explore, and we saw that with all these characters in the film.
Something else the film touches on is the act of being performative. The definition is made or done for show (as to bolster one’s own image or make a positive impression on others). And Charlie mentions that some aspects of him and Emma’s wedding are just performative.
I made the connection that the film might also teach us that all of us are just performative beings. We walk out the house every day, and we leave our secrets at home. It’s like we go up to present on stage and keep everything else backstage. If something were to slip up and the curtains opened and revealed everything, the show was worth nothing.
Going back to the idea that there are just some things about the human mind we suppress and ignite in favor of acceptance, that’s performative. That’s what this film did. It revealed a little bit of what the backstage looked like and it got us to really think, or made us really angry.
Was this film just a performance? No, it wasn’t. It was a risk, but it was something that really made you think about the depths of the human mind. How well can we handle the truth? Have we gotten too comfortable with performance?
“The Drama” is playing at The LOT in Fashion Island.
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