Robert Pattinson and Zendaya attend 'The Drama' premiere at Cinema Adriano on March 26 in Rome, Italy. Photo / Getty Images
Robert Pattinson and Zendaya attend 'The Drama' premiere at Cinema Adriano on March 26 in Rome, Italy. Photo / Getty Images
The Drama promises bombshell revelations and the wedding from hell, but serves up a cramped, feel-bad, unromantic comedy with characters we don’t care about.
Before they both appear in The Odyssey and Dune: Part Three later this year, Zendaya and Robert Pattinson spar as a couple whose contentment isshredded in the run-up to their nuptials.
But any chemistry we might expect from this pair is extinguished by the story, and they’re powerless to stop the film from feeling like an implausible wind-up.
The “twist” that has incensed the internet comes 20 minutes into the running time and isn’t really a twist at all.
Emma (Zendaya) and Charlie (Pattinson) are sampling wines at their wedding venue with their best friends (Alana Haim and Mamoudou Athie) when they all start to share the worst things they’ve ever done.
Emma’s disclosure (which is kept secret in the trailer but is easy to Google for anyone gagging to know) horrifies the other three – especially Haim’s Rachel, who seems like a monstrously unsympathetic person from the first minute we meet her, her forehead grooved with bitchy judgment.
Charlie, played by Pattinson as a hollow man with no backbone, has to decide whether the wedding should still go ahead, but can barely work out for himself whether this ought to be a relationship deal-breaker.
Emma (Zendaya) reveals a secret from her past that causes a crisis in her relationship with Charlie (Pattinson). Photo / A24
The drama turns into a glitchy ruckus; Charlie can’t fake convincing smiles for the wedding photographer and loses his libido, while Emma is monotonously desperate for them to reset and forget all about it. Zendaya can certainly act, but unalloyed gloom and panic bring out little from her that’s fresh here.
Norwegian director Kristoffer Borgli (Sick of Myself, Dream Scenario) likes his black comedies of discomfort to make us squirm, as does producer Ari Aster. But this film is skimpier on insight than the best work either has done, and Daniel Pemberton’s poignant flute score deserves to be in a more mature film.
We get thin laughs – better than no laughs, in theory, but perhaps not when Borgli engineers whole scenes to achieve them.
From the moment these two meet in a cafe, the vibes are bad: Charlie lies to get Emma’s attention in a stalker-like manner. And flashbacks to Emma’s unhappy school days – when the terrible thing nearly happened – feel like further distractions from any compelling love story at all.
Far from rooting for these two to wipe the slate clean and begin again, we’d be happier if they’d never crossed paths in the first place.
