The Drama Review: A Structured Rant

A24’s The Drama is a social commentary on secrets and our reactions to them. 

What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done? 

If someone asked you this question, what would your answer be? What answer do you think could be horrible enough to make your friends or coworkers start treating you like a pariah? You drowned a dog? Kissed your cousin as a kid? Locked someone in the boot of a car and ran away? 

What’s that thing you did (and you’re probably not proud of) that you’d actually admit when asked?

Depending on your answer, it may or may not affect how the person sees you going forward. Are you willing to risk it, or would you rather take it to your grave?

Knowing how society views certain things, there are some secrets I’d rather take to my grave than reveal to anyone. No matter how hard they ask. You’d be surprised how fast people claiming to be your safe space can easily turn on you the second you give them a reason. 

I finally watched Zendaya and Robert Pattinson’s movie last weekend, and I just knew I had to rant about it. 

A24 Does It Again

A24 is widely known for producing some of the best psychological thrillers, dark comedies, and atmospheric horror films. You might remember some notable A24 horror movies like Midsommar, Hereditary, and Talk to Me, or action flicks like Everything Everywhere All at Once. 

The Drama had been on my radar for months. It stars Zendaya — who I would genuinely watch read a grocery list — and Robert Pattinson, who has built an impressive post-Twilight career out of playing fascinatingly weird, deeply unhinged men (see Mickey 17). It’s also the first film in what’s shaping up to be a big year for the duo, followed by The Odyssey and Dune 3.

Reviewing this movie without spoiling everything was a bit tricky, since the trailer deliberately withheld the film’s central conflict. And that conflict is what drives everything — the tone, the direction, the characters’ choices. 

If you’ve only seen the trailer, you’d walk in thinking it’s a quirky romantic comedy about a couple planning their wedding. And for a brief, warm moment, it almost is. But this is A24. There’s always something lurking underneath.

 

The Plot

Emma (Zendaya) and Charlie (Robert Pattinson) are a happily engaged Boston couple, days away from their wedding. Charlie is the awkward, anxious director of an art museum. Emma is warm, self-assured, and seemingly the more grounded of the two. On paper, they make sense together.

Then, at a dinner with their married friends Mike and Rachel, a casual game of “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?” pulls the pin on a grenade nobody saw coming. And just like that, the entire week before their wedding implodes. 

What follows is a slow, uncomfortable, darkly funny unraveling of how the people closest to you react when you show them a part of yourself they weren’t prepared for.

I’ll leave the confession itself for you to discover. Trust me, you’ll want to go in without knowing. Just know that once it’s out, you can’t unsee how everyone in that room responds, and that’s really what the film is about.

Rob’s Character is a Whole Situation

Charlie is a weirdo. I say this with some affection, but mostly exasperation. He’s probably on the spectrum, though the film never confirms it, or maybe he’s just a genuinely, spectacularly awkward human being. 

His very first interaction with Emma gives second-hand embarrassment of the highest order. He approaches her at a café, pretends he’s read the same book she’s holding, and then spends the entire first date failing to maintain that lie. Somehow, she still agrees to see him again. Love is truly blind.

Robert Pattinson is doing a lot of heavy lifting here, and he delivers. Charlie is written as a well-intentioned but deeply spineless man, and Pattinson leans into that with a kind of twitchy, self-flagellating commitment that’s genuinely fascinating to watch. You feel sorry for him, then you’re frustrated by him, then you feel sorry for him again. Rinse and repeat.

The Social Commentary 

The whole crux of the movie stems from Emma’s confession. She admits to something she almost did as a teenager, and I’ll leave it there. Watch it, and decide for yourself whether the reactions from the people around her were justified.

What I will say is this: everyone at that table had admitted to doing terrible things. Nobody was clean. But when Emma’s secret came out, suddenly she was the monster. The way the room shifted was so recognizable that it was almost nauseating, because we’ve all seen it. We’ve all watched a group of people decide, in real time, who gets grace and who’s crucified.

And then there’s Rachel.

The Real Villain

Rachel (played by Alana Haim) is genuinely one of the most insufferable characters I’ve seen in recent times. She is a hypocritical, judgmental Karen who made Emma’s confession entirely about herself, dissecting it with the precision of someone who had been waiting their whole life for permission to look down on someone. She picks at people’s weakest, most vulnerable moments for sport, while painting herself the martyr. 

I couldn’t stand Rachel, and I think that’s entirely the point. She is every person who has ever confused cruelty and self-righteousness with moral clarity.

Meanwhile, Emma, the one everyone is busy painting as the villain, is somehow still the kindest, most self-aware person in the room. That irony is not lost on the film, and it shouldn’t be lost on you either.

Charlie, for his part, spirals badly. Does very stupid things. The whole time, I kept saying to myself, “Call off the wedding, Emma. Do not marry this anxious, confused man.” He means well. He really does. But meaning well and actually showing up for someone are two very different things, and Charlie constantly confuses them.

That Ending Though

I’m not going to spoil it. But I will say, I saw a thread on Reddit where someone suggested that Charlie might have imagined the diner scene. I genuinely hope that’s the case. Because after everything he put Emma through, I’m not convinced they should be together. 

If something like this comes up again down the line, I think he’d unravel all over again and do something equally stupid. But then again, love makes you do stupid things. That’s kind of the whole point.

Also, Mike needs to dump Rachel. Immediately. That’s my final word on that.

Final Take

The Drama is not a comfortable watch, and it’s not supposed to be. By anchoring everything around one character’s confession and then showing you the full spectrum of human reaction to it, the film is really asking you one question: how do you respond when someone shows you something about themselves you weren’t ready for?

It’s divisive, deliberately so, because the answer depends entirely on who you are and what you believe. Zendaya and Robert Pattinson’s movie is technically a romantic black comedy, but it functions more like a mirror. Awkward, funny, deeply unsettling, and smarter than it lets on. The Drama lived up to its title. And then some.