The Drama Is a Bleak Comedy That Delivers No Payoff

(SeaPRwire) –   Occasionally, it’s difficult to discern the purpose of a film’s existence. In a bid to engage audiences who are rumored to focus almost as much on their handheld devices as the cinema screen, narratives have fractured into chopped-up pieces, fragments meant to coalesce into a whole by the finale, like a puzzle with rough edges. You can zone out for a short while and not lose the thread. Yet by the conclusion, you may question what the film has actually imparted. This isn’t about a moral or a neat resolution. Truly, all that’s required is an emotion, an internal shift. It’s a fundamental cinematic joy that newer directors often neglect to deliver.

A prime case is The Drama, starring Robert Pattinson and Zendaya as Emma and Charlie, a young, enamored couple. They are planning their wedding, occupied with all the attendant fuss—consulting photographers, rehearsing choreography, composing loving toasts—and their best friends, Rachel and Mike (Alana Haim and Mamoudou Athie), who are also a pair, accompany them throughout. The opening scene shows Emma and Charlie’s cute meet in a café, though even this initial interaction is built on a lie: Charlie notices Emma reading a book; he sneakily photographs the cover and searches online to learn a bit about it. He then walks over, chattering about his adoration for the same title, despite having never read it. Emma initially disregards him—or so he believes. However, as she clarifies once he captures her notice, she is deaf in one ear (with an earbud in the other). She then beams at him so brightly it’s clear she completely accepts his small deceit, even though, we later learn, he never reads the book. They reside in a covetable apartment walled with packed bookshelves, a sight increasingly rare in films and absent from property listings. The implication is that these are individuals who live among and genuinely read books—or perhaps just one of them does, and we can surmise it’s Emma.

Charlie’s opening fib is minor, isn’t it? Within the universe of The Drama—more accurately described as a bleak comedy than a black one—perhaps not.  Flashbacks illustrate how Emma and Charlie’s connection has strengthened over their time together. Emma’s profession—she is warm and kind yet possesses a practical air—remains unspecified, while Charlie, endearing and slightly clumsy, appears to work at a small, elite museum. In the film’s most superficially romantic moment, Charlie whispers clearly into Emma’s deaf ear, probing whether she might detect traces of sound or simply comprehend the meaning. “I love you so much it hurts,” he says. “I want to marry you but I’m too afraid to even ask.” She cannot hear a word—she echoes his phrase back as absurd gibberish—yet the feeling has been sown. Everything should proceed flawlessly according to plan.

But it does not. In a major disclosure around the film’s first act, we discover Emma harbors a secret, a leftover from her awkward, friendless teen years in a military family; constant relocations prevented her from ever settling in. The viewer’s anticipated enjoyment of The Drama relies on entering unaware of this secret, though discussing the film’s message—or absence of one—necessitates revealing that the act in question is not something Emma committed, only something she contemplated. After Emma shares this secret, she is anguished by the memory alone; she has a minor meltdown, haunted by fleeting visions of her former self. Charlie, too, becomes disturbed and reconsiders his passion for her. Haim’s Rachel flies into a rage and completely abandons her closest friend.

Broadly, Emma’s secret connects to a trend that has generated significant pain and political turmoil, especially in the United States. It is notable that The Drama‘s writer-director is Norwegian, not American: Kristoffer Borgli—who earlier made the dryly amusing if inconsistent dark comedy Sick of Myself—may be attempting a sweeping political commentary on American society from a safe distance.

Nevertheless, it remains challenging to grasp what The Drama aims to express or achieve, beyond tantalizing its viewers with vagueness. Is it a study of how love can blind us—or, more severely, render us completely oblivious to another’s suffering? Is it an appeal for more empathy toward those grappling with, or who have grappled with, mental illness? Does it propose that people have forgotten how to genuinely listen? One need not have been distracted by a phone for the film’s 100-minute runtime to be perplexed by The Drama. Why invest full focus when there is no substantial reward? The eventual wedding is staged for acrid, awkward humor, though it is not amusing. The climactic scene, supposedly the dramatic peak, devolves into a resigned “Weddings! What can you do?” gesture.

One might contend that the cast of The Drama is its main attraction, and perhaps sufficient. Pattinson is an insightful, nuanced performer, and here he glides from dubious to charming to, potentially, truly vile—in short, he meets every demand of the role, however ambiguous. Zendaya conveys Emma’s confusion at Charlie’s rejection; her powerlessness to repair the situation likely symbolizes the relational harm wrought by poor communication. That might amount to something, or it could be very little.

Occasionally, a director’s handling of a supporting actor reveals all. Haim, the singer who made a captivating acting debut as a sort of enigmatic California ideal in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza, portrays a character whose reaction to her friend’s confession seems almost exaggeratedly severe, which is likely intentional. Yet why is Haim filmed so unflatteringly, frequently in tight close-ups that force attention on the contorted shape of her mouth when she talks? She becomes an unintentional symbol for the film itself, which chugs along without ever articulating much. It merits half your concentration. You could dedicate the other half to lamenting what films, even pleasurably average ones, once represented.