By Charles Hubbard, Second Year, Theatre and Performance
In our current, increasingly polarised political climate, deliberately un-PC, self-consciously edgy humour has been almost entirely co-opted by vile right-wing pigs who have been justifiably rejected by polite society and take shelter in online forums primarily fuelled by misogyny and hate. Because of this, progressive, left-wing figures have understandably avoided association with such thorny comedic trappings like the plague. And yet a film like The Drama (2026), starring two bastions of liberal Hollywood (and directed by the only man who both could and would push both of them to lead a film this intentionally transgressive), reminds you how gleefully entertaining it can be to watch the right people indulge in turning such taboos into laugh riots.
I was baffled when the trailers for both the upcoming Italian-set rom-com You, Me and Tuscany (2026) and the A24 psychological horror film Undertones (2026) played consecutively before my showing of The Drama and yet the film that follows showed just how thin the line can be between staring into the face of a loved one and staring into the darkest parts of humanity. With the sense of humour of Norm Macdonald, couched within a marketing campaign so misleading it makes last year’s Materialists look downright honest by comparison, The Drama’s tumultuous leadup to the main characters’ big day will have you as rattled and anxious as if you were having to plan a wedding yourself. In other words, prepare yourself for the online discourse on this one - it’s going to be nuclear.
The relationship between an inexplicably British museum director Charlie Thompson (Robert Pattinson - even twitcher than he was in the first Twilight (2008)) and the ethereal but volatile Emma Harwood (Zendaya, who hilariously chose this to launch her banner year) is far from chill. After a meet-cute that gets more duplicitous the more you think about it, their relationship is certainly heavy on the friction in a way that signals danger ahead when you learn they’re planning on tying the knot soon.
However, these poultry bumps in no way prepare them for the truth bomb (whose size is only challenged by that of Pattinson’s bulging forehead vein) that Emma drops a week before the wedding, when her and Charlie agree to tell each other the worst thing they’ve ever done. The subsequent tension and second thoughts between the two snowball in truly magnificent fashion and lead to a wedding ceremony so ghastly it would even make Victoria Beckham cringe.
This is as far as the film’s cheeky and elusive marketing gets and it’s as far into the plot as I will go. I would hate to spoil this twist for anyone, even someone who’s not going to see it. Just know that it is designed to ruffle a flock-full of feathers in a way that only a demented Scandinavian freak handed total dramatic carte blanche could hope to do.
Every film must walk a line between sincerity and irony and Borgli muddies that line to such an extent that it’s almost impossible to tell whether he is deeply sympathising with his characters or derisively laughing at them from behind the camera.
In particular, the way the film delves into Emma’s past after she lays it bare to her now-reluctant groom-to-be is satirical and serious in equal measures, inviting the audience chuckle with bafflement in one moment only to mercilessly weaponise such humour against them for the next. The greatest tool in a filmmaker’s arsenal is control of the tonal dial and Borgli, like the very best of them, uses his set of nobs and switches to play the audience like a fiddle right up until the film’s cyclical (and disarmingly straight-faced) denouement.
However, if I have one knock against the film, it’s that, in its descent its madness, which is nevertheless skilfully plotted and fantastically played by Pattinson, Emma as a character gets slightly lost in the shuffle - becoming an object to be looked at and talked about rather than the multi-dimensional human being the premise relies on her to be. Make no mistake about her top billing - this is Charlie’s story from start to finish and Borgli seems unwilling to experiment with Emma’s POV to nearly the same extent as it does with Charlie.
As referenced earlier, Pattinson really is career-best here. No stranger to playing handsome, successful men who are actually deranged cockroaches in disguise, he combines his outstanding comedic chops from Mickey 17 (2025), eye-popping madness from Die, My Love (2025) and devastating spiral into paranoia and chaos from Good Time (2017) into a delicious, multi-tiered wedding cake of a performance.
To liken Pattinson’s career to the allegory of the blind men and the elephant, all of Pattinson’s previous performances feel like mere shades of potential when compared to what he is able to accomplish here. Zendaya, by comparison, is often unfairly dismissed as a superficial ‘It Girl’ who piggybacked off an undeserved Emmy and a couple major franchises to force her way into the limelight. Never is the fallacy of notion more exposed than here.
Zendaya, like her Challengers (2024) cast member Josh O’Connor, is uniquely skilled at changing her onscreen status in the blink of an eye. One second, she’s the dom to Pattinson’s eager sub like the bona fide movie star she is. The next, she appears as a vulnerable lost child - a hairpin turn that the film’s twist makes all the thornier.
Anna Leaf
In short, I just want to savour this moment. Because I’m sure, by the time you’re reading this, the film will have been wilfully misinterpreted by every bad-faith Letterboxd account on the planet and the hurricane of discourse around it will have become so insufferable that people will long for the halcyon days of the Sinners (2025) vs One Battle Oscar (2025) media storm.
Even if everyone involved ends up getting a cement-mixer full of flack for this, I cannot commend them enough for attempting something this knowingly psychotic. In an age where the majority of non-franchise films are primarily consumed in 30-second bites on TikTok, you kind of have to hand it to Borgli, Pattinson and Zendaya for making a film that could so easily be taken out of context.
Featured Image: IMDb | Illustration by Epigram / Sophia Izwan
Will you catch The Drama while it still strikes hot in cinemas?
