Is it possible to reject the big idea but still like the movie? Exhibit A: The Drama, a producers’ wet dream of casting – Robert Pattinson and Zendaya – and a strange hybrid of the talky New York dramedy, of the sort Woody Allen made his own, and a horror film.
Woody Allen done as horror, yes, that’s about it. They are uneasy companions, one all rational, the other fantastical, one a running commentary on a situation, the other a situation that needs no commentary. But even Woody Allen veers off piste occasionally – Midnight in Paris – to great effect. Ari Aster and Lars Knudsen, the guys behind Midsommar, are behind this, and there is some of Midsommar’s conceptual bravado here too.
The premise’s starting position is that Charlie (Pattinson) and Emma (Zendaya) are very much a thing. As the film opens we see him in flashback hitting on her in a coffee shop in a corny old way. She’s completely missing what he’s up to because she’s listening to music on her headphones and is in any case deaf in one ear – a detail explained later on. But she gives him another go because he’s big and handsome and has a lion’s head. Within a montage moment the two of them are very much in love and about to get married.
The movie has its most Woody Allen Woody Allen scenes around this point, in one of those strange acting-as-non-acting sequences when Charlie and Emma and their friends Rachel (Alana Haim) and Mike (Mamoudou Athie) are sit around a table sharing secrets from their past – bad stuff they’ve never told anyone before – when Emma comes out with something so shocking that the evening effectively ends there, with Charlie going home with the jitters about their upcoming nuptials.
Will they or won’t they make it to the big day? Will Charlie’s misgivings die down or get worse? Will Emma start to see him as a big pussy who can’t take a dose of reality? On a wider spectrum, how many people go into marriage with no real idea of who they’re marrying? And how difficult is it to stop the process if the slide towards the big day is well underway?
What did Emma do? I cannot say, but she didn’t kill or maim anyone and as a conclusive reason for anyone not to marry a beautiful, talented, interesting and sweet young woman it seemed flimsy to me.
But watching writer/director Kristoffer Borgli making a Woody Allen horror movie was fascinating and funny. He even throws in a couple of scenes that could almost have been lifted from Allen’s Annie Hall/Hannah and Her Sisters era. If you’ve seen Borgli’s Dream Scenario, with Nicolas Cage, you’ll know weird high concepts are where he gets his kicks.
Of the two actors, I’m more Team Zendaya, who I’ve never seen put a foot wrong, than Team Pattinson, who has (though when he’s good he’s really good). But she can’t do anything with the role, or not enough to convince us that she’s a real individual rather than a film-maker’s concept to be fleshed out later. Alana Haim similarly gets slightly beached with her role as the appalled Rachel. The very likeable Mamoudou Athie is nice Mike, nothing more to say. Coming out of almost nowhere for a scene that’s actually the best thing in it is Hailey Gates as a work colleague of Charlie’s, whose very funny/ghastly interaction with him pays off in the movie’s big finale.
It does not work and yet it does. The concept overwhelms the stars, who fight back by trying to act the film into life. And it is a great film to watch if you like acting. Or the sound of gears crunching. Or Pattinson and Zendaya. Initial reviews all seemed to be in the “on the one hand/on the other” zone – as am I. But the film took a lot of money at the box office. They have their fans, the stars, quite obviously.
The Drama – Watch it/buy it at Amazon
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© Steve Morrissey 2026
