Photo: IMdB
“Can you ever really know your partner? And what does unconditional love really look like?”
These are the questions that A24’s latest production, "The Drama," thinks it’s clever enough to ask. However, in its exploration of those questions, "The Drama" finds itself inadvertently asking a much more daring one – "how do you navigate the delicate balance of exploring oft unspoken contemporary social issues, while maintaining the level of empathy that storytelling and film demands?"
Starring Zendaya and Robert Pattinson, the film is an undeniably Gen Z affair – much of its runtime is devoted to the idea of public perception; what others think of you, what they’re saying about you behind your back, what they might or might not know about you. In an era where everything is filmed or posted online, this anxiety is one that many of its audience will relate to. These ideas of public perception and cancel culture interplay nicely with ones regarding romance – how well can we ever truly know our significant other? Who were they before we met them? And is that important to who they are now?
Yet, the catalyst of this thematic exploration is the one earning all the headlines – and for good reason. Its twist – or rather, premise, considering how early it takes place in the film and how much everything afterwards hinges on it – is unquestionably controversial, and where that delicate balance comes into play. In a supposedly “innocent” game of “What’s the Worst Thing You’ve Ever Done” with the bride, groom, best man, and maid of honor, the empathetic and kind-hearted Emma (Zendaya) reveals that when she was in high school, she (SPOILERS) planned and nearly went through with a school shooting. Despite the lightness the other admissions were treated with (ones the characters DID end up going through – including locking up a disabled child in an abandoned RV) hers became the topic of endless debate and conversation for the remaining ninety minutes of runtime.
Coming off of "Dream Scenario," a film starring a college professor (played by Nicholas Cage) who suddenly appears in everyone’s dreams without explanation and is forced into the public spotlight, Kristopher Borgoli enjoys playing with sensitive and contemporary topics. One of the first major films to feature the topic at length (beat out only months prior by Gore Verbenski’s “Good Luck, Don’t Die, Have Fun!”), the film chooses two routes – the present day, where Robert Pattinson’s boyish and awkward Charlie tries to wrap his head around who his fiance used to be, as well as flashbacks to Emma’s high school experience, chronicling the isolation and bullying she suffered through, how she fell into the rabbit hole that brought her to such terrifying and incomprehensible conclusions, what made her choose to not go through with it, and then the radical change she made when she was treated with kindness and empathy, joining a gun control group in her high school. The film treats the flashbacks in a raw yet satirical manner, with one scene where a young Emma attempts to film a manifesto but is thwarted by continuous Microsoft updates. Borgoli’s writing and directing also treat Pattinson as both earnest and a coward – he loves Emma and truly wants to understand what led her to such lengths, yet is continuously influenced and controlled by the opinions of others. This tension and disconnect leads him to make a choice that immediately becomes his answer to “What’s the Worst Thing You’ve Ever Done,” and leads to a truly cringe-inducing third act (in the best way possible).
Borgoli is bold to tackle subject matter this sensitive and with such bluntness, and in doing so holds a mirror up to our society – this problem has gotten so bad it’s become the main subject of a Hollywood feature film. Yet, does he do it with the grace and seriousness needed for such a hard issue to talk about? It’s hard to say. Hailing from Norway, Borgoli has a distance to these distinctly American problems that allows him to rip the band-aid off so to speak and not worry about how exactly he’s portraying them. This works to varying degrees. While most of the flashbacks come off as mocking the ideology and aesthetics of wannabe school shooters, one could easily imagine a scenario where such mockery inevitably leads to another one of these tragedies. Additionally, in exploring how uniquely American said aesthetics are, specifically in how we tend to glorify the weapons used in a multitude of different ways, the film teeters far too closely in becoming exactly what it’s trying to speak against. Yes, Emma didn’t go through with her shooting, but only (SPOILERS) because another one happened the same day. What if it hadn’t? Does she still deserve the same empathy that the film is asking us to afford to her now? The film wants us to see from the lens as Charlie in this situation, and positing him as overreactive in certain situations makes it seem like, we, by extension, are taking things too seriously, when in reality, many of his questions are more than justified and are delivered with care and genuine curiosity.
Where the film shines, and where all of its answers lay, is where it explores what it’s truly about, deep down underneath all the shock and show: empathy. Emma’s defining trait, empathy, is the number one theme and keyword of the movie, driving every conflict of the film and every question it asks its audience; who deserves empathy, and who doesn’t? It’s empathy that both causes Emma to reconsider her plan, seeing the devastated reactions of her classmates to the mall shooting that coincidentally happens the same day she carried her father’s rifle into school. It’s empathy that helps her grow into the version of herself she is today, and it’s empathy that affords Charlie a second chance after the mistakes he makes throughout the film. It’s the lack of empathy from the truly hateful maid of honor Rachel (played with gleeful deviousness by Alana Haim) and the steadfast thoughtlessness from her agreeable husband Mike (played by Mamoudu Athie). Every time Charlie has nearly accepted his future wife’s past and how it came about, Rachel and Mike play the devil on his shoulder, advocating for him to put her through the exact same isolation and othering that sent her down that path in the first place.
It’s the war of empathy versus otherness that underlines the film, and combines with its social commentary to inspire thoughts and questions that’ll stick in the viewer’s head long after the credits roll. It’s this quality that, more than anything else, is the most viable shred of proof that a film is well done – how long it sticks with you after you’ve watched it (this rule, of course, can and has been broken, but it’s a good litmus test). Despite not saying it directly, by making empathy the key focus, it subtly posits it as the answer to many of its questions, both deliberate and accidental. Does America fetishize weaponry and violence? Yes, and if we took steps to change that maybe susceptible and chronically online youth wouldn’t glorify it. But before anything else, glorifying kindness and empathy, and practicing it in our daily lives, is the greatest action we can take to prevent tragedy and the obliteration of individual souls.
The Drama posits that, “to know someone is to love them,” is a saying that was never really true. Rather, it’s “knowing someone fully, and still choosing to treat them with radical empathy” that constitutes a true act of love. And what is radical empathy at its core, if not love?