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This would be in a heap of trouble were Zendaya not here.
The DRama
Director: Kristoffer Borgli • Writer: Kristoffer Borgli
Starring: Zendaya, Robert Pattinson, Alana Haim, Mamoudou Athie, Jordyn Curet
USA • 1hr 45mins
Opens Hong Kong April 9 • IIB
Grade: B+
It is very, very hard to talk about Norwegian director Kristoffer Borgli’s The Drama without 1) addressing his own underage (though not by Norwegian legal standards) romance kerfuffle – which he detailed in a Norwegian media outlet years ago – recirculating now that his latest feature is out, and 2) the film’s central, divisive narrative conceit. Let’s just leave it at gun violence and acknowledge the reactions to Borgli’s spin on a touchy subject are going to run the gamut from “tone deaf” to “misguided”, “uninformed” and “about time someone said this shit out loud.” Credit to him for a bold choice.
Borgli hit international cinema radar when 2022’s Sick of Myself, in which a coffee shop worker becomes so jealous of the attention her artist boyfriend starts getting that she sabotages her own health in an effort to sabotage his career. The film was a savage take-down of the attention economy and skewered the culture of victimhood stoked so vigourously by social media. Then came the more cohesive Dream Scenario, which featured Nicolas Cage as a professor that rockets to stardom for his ability to enter everyone else’s dreams, before spectacularly crashing and burning in a surreal and typically oddball exploration of contemporary fame and celebrity. Thematically, both films slot in with The Drama, though this time around Borgli is biting off considerably more than he can sometimes chew.
Record scratch moment
Zendaya plays Emma, a fairly non-descript Manhattan professional who needs marketing specialists for work and who, being Zendaya, somehow balances dorky-normal and stupidly gorgeous effortlessly enough to be in a stable, super-hot romance with Robert Pattinson’s Charlie, a British expat with a high-powered museum curator job. When The Drama and the drama start, the two are in the last stages of planning their chic wedding and writing their own vows, though the ceremony seems to involve footwear. On the evening they do one final pass on the menu and the wine list – they’re so cool they drink orange wine – they play a drunken, boneheaded confessional game with their besties, her maid of honour Rachel (Alana Haim, One Battle After Another) and his best man Mike (Mamoudou Athie, a water dude in Elemental). They have to tell each other the worst thing they’ve ever done. Emma reluctantly reveals her dirty deed, and it’s a bombshell so huge no one is quite sure they can come get over it. They’re not sure they can stay friends. They’re not sure if they can trust her. They’re not sure they even know her – including Charlie.
The less you know the better because it’s being caught off guard that gives The Drama its punch and demands that we ask ourselves some very simple questions that, like they did in Sick of Myself and Dream Scenario, put our feet to the flames over how much this modern bluster of “forgiveness” and “second chances” is genuine and how much is performative empathy.
The Drama walks a fine line between exploitation and sensitivity, frequently using pitch black humour to shift tone when its overriding moral complexity threatens to get too heavy. Emma’s crucial backstory could have used more thought, but it was also intended to be the catalyst for the mess that followed its revelation. Some will say that’s unfair, and that Borgli’s grasp of the material is lacking, but it’s hard to deny it doesn’t spark much needed debate. Depending on your point of view – and possibly proximity to this catalyst – Zendaya’s either done dirty by Emma being underwritten, or she’s been mistakenly identified as the main character. Yes, Emma is the emotional heart of the story, and Zendaya injects way more layers into the role than are probably on the page, and in the end she’s the one we like the most. This could be problematic. But the plot pivots on Charlie and his reaction to her news, and to a lesser degree Haim’s Rachel, whose unrepentent DGAF-ness almost steals the show. Ultimately it’s Charlie’s unravelling, and Pattinson’s perfectly pitched performance, that provides the narrative momentum and really drives home the question of how well we can really know anyone and the limits of understanding.
There are clunky bits that ring false if you want to talk statistics, but those can be forgiven for Borgli’s desire to make a larger point about an issue Americans simply do not want to reckon with. Quasi-elipitical and gracefully disjointed editing by Borgli and Joshua Raymond Lee send the story back and forth through time, revealing and recontextualising the details in dribs and drabs that make us rethink not just Emma, but Charlie and Rachel, the reasons we’re at this point, and double down on the cringey moments. And they are cringey. And hilarious. It’s not easy viewing, it may not even be enjoyable. But The Drama is probably, right now, essential.