Zendaya & Robert Pattinson’s A24 Shocker Is Much More Than Its Twist

The Drama is destined to be talked about – built for it, even. A24 has sold it as a starry, messy “how well do you really know your partner?” dramedy that hinges on a groom learning a shocking secret about his bride just days before their wedding. It delivers on those expectations, shock factor and all. I expect that anyone who sees it will have something to say, and that much of the conversation will center on its undeniably provocative choice of secret. I have no doubt some will find it in poor taste, or perhaps even exploitative.

If this were just the movie it’s been marketed as, it probably would be those things. But it’s much more. As it tells a thrilling story, engineered with expert precision to keep you hanging on every turn, it embarks on a truly fascinating thought experiment about the nature of identity in relationships: who we are to other people, how easily that can change, and how disruptive it can be when it does. This film is rooted (to steal one of its laugh lines) in “double empathy,” exploring when and why we condemn others without itself condemning any of its characters. It may be an entertaining conversation piece, but make no mistake, The Drama is also one of the best movies you’ll see this year.

The Drama Will Have You Hanging On Zendaya And Robert Pattinson’s Every Move

The story begins with a meet-cute that seems designed to make a mockery of the term. Charlie (Robert Pattinson) sees a beautiful woman from across a café, and he nervously makes a risky decision. When she gets up momentarily, he scurries over to her seat, snaps a picture of the book she’s reading, and runs back. He intends to pretend he’s read it (and loved it) as an icebreaker, and when she returns, one earbud enticingly left dangling, he makes his move. But she doesn’t even acknowledge him. Suddenly conscious of the many witnesses to his failure, he starts to leave the café, before doubling back to try and insist, in classic man-with-wounded-pride fashion, that he actually wasn’t hitting on her.

This moment is important. As it unfolds, it borders on creepy – given the way Pattinson’s career has fluctuated between heartthrobs and weirdos, it’s unsettlingly easy to imagine this leading to a very different movie from the one we expected. But we don’t get to see how deep a hole Charlie would have dug for himself, because, during his indignant double-back, Emma (Zendaya) notices him for the first time. As the sound design has already told us, she’s deaf in that music-free ear; she hadn’t heard a word Charlie said. He’s obviously relieved, but still an embarrassed, sweaty mess, unsure of where to go from here. So, Emma graciously offers him a do-over. Sit back down over there, and try again, as if the failed attempt never happened.

Pick-up attempt #2 clearly went well. The Drama shows us this scene because it’s how Charlie plans to open his wedding speech, which he’s workshopping with his best man, Mike (Mamoudou Athie). Through this clever device, we’re treated to a montage of Charlie-and-Emma moments that have defined their loving partnership, and it feels like being hit with a concentrated dose of romcom giddiness. Zendaya and Pattinson’s chemistry is instantaneous, as is our investment in their characters’ bond. We know who they are together, and how they see each other, well enough to fully grasp the tragedy of what happens next.

One night, while finalizing their menu with Mike and Rachel (Alana Haim), his wife and Emma’s maid of honor, their wine-driven conversation leads them to a little game. Back when they got married, Mike and Rachel agreed to share with each other the worst thing they’d ever done, and thanks to Rachel’s loose lips, Mike is now being pressured to share his. He relents – but only if all of them promise to share in kind. Emma goes last.

Writer-director Kristoffer Borgli revels in this scene. It’s carefully paced, not only to ground us in the excellent performances by all four actors, but to get us attuned to every detail of their stories, an audience habit that will become critically important. Every little wrinkle in how something happened (or in how it’s framed) colors how we interpret it, or, in the context of this game, how morally wrong we think it was. Charlie will soon become obsessed with extracting these details, looking for something that will allow him to rationalize away this transgression and keep the image he’s had of his bride-to-be intact. Across its runtime, The Drama encourages us to reflect on why we do this, whether any of it actually makes a difference, and what it might mean if it does.

The Drama Never Lets The Laughs And Gasps Overshadow Emma And Charlie

Pattinson and Zendaya are wonderful in these roles. Borgli is interested in the way psychic distress bubbles up through our bodies, especially in the context of a relationship, and his stars are perfectly suited to portraying their turmoil with their physicality. They also skillfully toe the line of The Drama‘s genres, shimmering between glossy romantic leads, emotionally complex characters, and comedic exaggerations. Every other member of the cast is mostly tasked with leaning into one of those modes. They pretty much all land well, though Athie’s natural, gentle performance and Zoë Winters’ every-word-a-punchline wedding photographer deserve special mention.

With all the moment-to-moment wildness – all “the drama” – we never lose sight of the people at the center.

One of The Drama‘s strengths is that its many tones often stem from the same place. Borgli’s interest in recontextualization, for example, manifests as both dramatic moments for Charlie and innocent wedding vocabulary gaining hilarious double-meanings for us. It speaks to the film’s way of seeing its characters and their actions through understanding eyes, capturing their complexities and contradictions in an effort to assemble a more complete picture – which is, I believe, why the choice of Emma’s secret ultimately works. The goal is not merely to trigger and manipulate our preconceptions, but to push past them; to consider the human underneath a label we’ve become all too familiar with.

The most affecting of Borgli’s stylistic touches is the decision to visualize his characters’ mental spaces, their waking imaginations, which insert themselves into the flow of the film. Charlie rewrites moments of his life with Emma as occurring with her younger self; Emma, waking to find Charlie already up and gone, pictures him conspiring with Mike to call off the wedding. It makes their emotional lives immediately accessible, and ensures the film’s focus is on the personal, not the topical. With all the moment-to-moment wildness – all “the drama” – we never lose sight of the people at the center.

The morning after Emma’s confession, when she and Charlie face each other again for the first time, they struggle to know exactly how to behave. They are both trying to work out whether this has changed anything for them, who up to now found being with each other so easy. In brief flickers, we see them embracing and laughing, shaking this off as just a bump in their shared road, before cutting back to their real, distant awkwardness. It feels like a wish conjured by both of them; an awareness of how things could be, maybe even should be, that’s just sitting there between them, feeding the tension each second it doesn’t come true.

Anyone who’s ever fought with a loved one will recognize this feeling that The Drama distills so perfectly into a cinematic flourish. I can already tell this will be one of the moments that stays with me from this year in movies.

The Drama releases wide in theaters on Friday, April 3.