The Drama

The Drama is the new film from Norwegian writer-director Kristoffer Borgli, previously behind the satirical Sick of Myself and Dream Scenario with Nicolas Cage, here making his first foray into a deliberately uncomfortable romantic comedy produced and released by A24. Zendaya and Robert Pattinson play Emma Harwood, a bookseller at Mission Books, and Charles Thompson, the director of an art museum, a happily engaged couple whose wedding-week preparations are upended by a confession made during a night of heavy drinking, an event that tests both their relationship and the conventions of the romance genre itself. The supporting cast includes Mamoudou Athie, Alana Haim, Zoe Winters and Hailey Gates.

Critics have responded favorably on the whole, if not unanimously, praising above all the two lead performances, Zendaya is described as one of the most unpredictable actors of her generation, while Pattinson, now deep into a career phase defined by increasingly eccentric choices, steals scene after scene with a physical, bumblingly funny turn. Several critics have drawn comparisons to the marital erotic-thriller tradition made famous by Adrian Lyne, noting that Borgli takes a different tack, provocative without ever tipping into self-satisfaction, posing an uncomfortable question at the story's center and then stepping back to let the characters, and the audience along with them, wrestle with it in real time. The reservations critics have raised mostly concern structure, with constant jumps in time and tone that some reviewers felt disoriented more than they engaged, turning what could have been a truly memorable film into a solid but not fully resolved one.

It remains one of the year's most-discussed titles across social media and the trade press, helped along by two of the moment's most closely followed stars, and it has recently returned to attention thanks to a strongly positive commercial run, more than 126 million dollars worldwide against a budget of roughly 28 million.