From the writer/director of “Dream Scenario” comes another swing and a miss. By Kristy Puchko on March 31, 2026.
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A24 loves a romance that demands its audience reevaluate love. Consider the nightmare-fuel breakup movie that is *Midsommar*, the carnal journey of self-acceptance that is *Babygirl*, the aching anti-romance of *Queer*, the violent passion of *Love Lies Bleeding*, the path not chosen of *Past Lives*, and the buzzkill subplot of sexual assault in the love-triangle dramedy *Materialists*. To this curious company of hits and misses comes *The Drama*, Norwegian filmmaker Kristoffer Borgli’s follow-up to the Nicolas Cage-fronted *Dream Scenario*.
SEE ALSO: [Zendaya and Robert Pattinson plan the wedding from hell in ‘The Drama’ teaser](https://mashable.com/video/the-drama-teaser-zendaya-robert-pattinson)
Written and directed by Borgli, *The Drama* stars Zendaya and Robert Pattinson as a young couple who have great chemistry and a seemingly blissful marriage on their horizon. That is, until a dangerous drinking game throws the groom into a deep spiral of panic and doubt. We’re not talking your average wedding jitters scenario. Borgli uses a troubling American issue to rattle the expectations of wedding-day drama. But much like *Dream Scenario*, his actors give more than his undercooked script deserves.
*The Drama* isn’t about your common wedding upsets.
It’s the week before Charlie (Pattinson) and Emma (Zendaya) are to marry, which should be stressful enough between buttoning up the details of menus, speeches, and a bespoke first dance number. However, Borgli heightens the tension of this chaotic time by snapping from the present to the couple’s flashbacks, fantasies, and nightmares as the couple’s idea of each other changes dramatically.
The romance between Charlie (Pattinson) and Emma (Zendaya) begins rather blandly with a meet-cute at a coffee shop, where he lies about loving the book she’s reading. Such a little white lie might seem harmless, but it’s the first red flag — one of many. Through flashbacks, we witness Charlie doubling down on his lies. Though Emma learns the truth during their courtship and forgives him, Charlie can’t handle a dark secret from her past.
Their relationship hits a wall as he desperately tries to rationalize her revelation. Their fast-approaching wedding day becomes a ticking clock as he can’t shake his newfound fear of her. It’s almost clever how Borgli has found a new route to explore cold feet. But the story that builds from this place is scattershot and shallow, much like *Dream Scenario*’s compelling concept fell apart under the filmmaker’s clumsy commentary on cancel culture.
Wait, so what happens in *The Drama*?
On a drunken night out with friends, Emma reveals “the worst thing” she’s ever done was plan a school shooting. She makes it clear she didn’t go through with it, but the reveal that she’d seriously considered such violence is enough to shatter her relationship with her maid of honor Rachel (a glowering Alana Haim) and threaten her upcoming marriage with Charlie.
With this revelation, Charlie no longer sees his fiancée as empathetic and kind, deleting these compliments from the draft of his wedding speech. He begins to imagine her holding a rifle, sometimes as her younger self (Jordyn Curet) and sometimes as her present self in lingerie, in their bed. As they argue over this revelation, he fantasizes that she’s joking, and they can just push past it. He also imagines their wedding day as a mass shooting, with Emma chasing him down as their guests lie splayed among the decorated venue, blood staining their dress clothes.
Where the film begins as a double-hander, with both Emma and Charlie informing the narrative through dialogue and flashbacks intended to be from their respective perspectives, *The Drama* shifts to Charlie after the revelation. As the audience, we are urged to be more aligned with his fears and paranoia, and Emma becomes less and less knowable.
There are many flashbacks to Emma’s life as a teenager, fitfully showing her loneliness and the cold comfort her father’s military rifle offered. But it’s unclear if these looks back are Emma’s memory or Charlie’s imagination. Emma struggles to explain herself in the present as Charlie and his friends point out more red flags, like the accusation that Emma doesn’t have any “real friends” of her own. She becomes a mystery to us as Borgli’s script sides with Charlie through the perspective shift, leaving Emma alone in her thoughts and disconnected from her audience.
*The Drama* dabb