The Drama (Kristoffer Borgli, 2026)

[wattsup32]

I saw "The Drama" today. I enjoyed it.

However, I'm here not to post about the film, but to laud the trailer. It did what a trailer is supposed to do: make me want to see the film. And, it did it without doing what almost every trailer does these days: tell you the entire film including the ending.

In this case, the trailer presents you with two necessary narrative points: 1) a couple is getting married, and 2) something isn't quite right in how they feel about it. It also does a good job of laying out the central vibe of uneasiness. That's it. Everything else is left up to the film itself.

I am curious to read the thoughts of others who see it and who also saw/recall the trailer.

[domino harvey]

I saw the trailer a while ago and of course just had the movie spoiled for me earlier today. I will say, I definitely did not guess what the secret was from the trailer. I figured this was something like Le prenom where the shock of the concealed part is just the start of everything anyways (still, don’t spoil that one for yourself!)

[Mr Sausage]

The Drama (Kristoffer Borgli)

Borgli makes wonderfully poisonous satires. I think this one's the funniest and most complex yet. I love its ad campaign--how many unsuspecting couples will be enticed into this gloriously bad time thinking they're in for a peppy rom com? I've only ever seen Robert Pattinson in intense, serious roles, so how delightful to find him a gifted comic actor. His facial expressions alone were a riot. And it's nice to see Alana Haim turning into a genuine actress. Her self-righteous bitchiness was maybe the highlight of the climax. It's impossible to talk about the movie without discussing its twist, so anything I have to say that's remotely interesting has to be in a spoiler box. Please don't judge the movie on the shallow comments you can read!

Spoiler

The whole confession scene is fascinating, because it's hard to disentangle the rejection Emma receives. There's something viscerally distasteful about her revelation, and yet she's also the only person whose worst decision hurt no one but herself. Charlie cyberbullied someone until the whole family potentially had to uproot (and given what we know about cyberbullying, it could've itself been the cause of either suicide or a shooting); Mike shielded himself while his girlfriend continued to get bit by a potentially rabid dog; and Rachel inflicted something traumatic and abusive on a mentally disabled boy, whose physical safety in the end was accidental. Everyone did something very bad to someone else; Emma is convicted merely of planning something. Of course what she planned was grotesque and involved deliberate death and mayhem. But, still, in large part she's rejected for the taint of the thought itself, for having touched a very American hell that most wish to hold at arm's length.

At the same time, what's odd is how shallow her school shooting obsession was. No one listens to her or tries, really, to find out her thought process, Charlie especially; and yet from what she says, it's hard not to feel like the reason she's unable to account for her decision is that it was just shallow. She liked the aesthetic, the mood, the sense of identity it brought. The moment she's offered another identity and aesthetic, she pivots to the complete opposite concept without pause. All attempts by the other characters to locate some depth in her decision--finding unprocessed trauma, or linking it to dense theoretical concepts--fall flat. And this shallowness actually shadows her character. She's perpetually trying to redo situations and scenarios to get an optimal result, casting off reality for another of her choosing. And yet she's the one objecting to the inauthenticity of the wedding ritual, wanting a more spontaneous dance over the choreographed routine. So it can't be that she's completely shallow, ie. a psychopath. But there is a shallowness to her character that sits there uncomfortably, frustrating the other characters' (and our own) attempts to understand why she did what she did.

Of course the other characters are shallow in their own right, just self-obsessed, cowardly people. Rachel immediately makes Emma's confession about herself in this bizarre way (as tho' Emma somehow should've known better than to decide to shoot up a school because later she'd gain a friend with a cousin who was shot...but not in school. So bizarre). Charlie is a pussy, the DJ has it right, and so in fact is Mike. Charlie's cowardice and self-absorption, the way he broods on things and ruminates to the point he can't really hear what others are saying, makes for wonderfully comic scenes, but also scenes that are raw in their messiness. His breakdown at work, crashing from worry, to panic, to rage, to despair, to lust, to despair again is both hilarious and stark. Not enough movies are willing to sit with their characters' messy, unhealthy emotional responses like this movie.

And then there's little bits, like the way Borgli pulls back from their charming, giddy conversation around the table to show the servers having a bad time dealing with the self-absorbed pricks. A nice touch. I also liked how the side characters are opened, like Misha, who's slowly revealed to be someone who likes to participate in her own degradation, and may well be in an abusive relationship (her reaction to Charlie's sudden violent sexual initiation is passive and resigned, the kind of response from someone whose past has taught her the score). Her early response that she would call the cops if her boyfriend revealed what Emma revealed is incoherent...until we see her boyfriend's violence, and hear her exasperated "why can't you ever use your words?", suggesting a history of dealing with his outbursts. Given all that, her answer about calling the cops makes a lot of sense, and makes Charlie's self-absorbed decision to treat her very specific response as a universal all the more funny. She'd call the cops on her boyfriend, but not necessarily anyone else.

A layered, calibrated, toxic movie of a kind I wish we had more of.

[wattsup32]

Dom and Sausage, thanks to you both for your comments. I am in agreement with nearly all of it.

I would characterize the "twist" not so much as a "twist" as Sausage did and more of a "secret" the way Dom did. It really is just a plot point. A major one, to be sure, but still just a plot point.

In any event, it is a terrific take on a rom com, full of lovely editing choices that add depth to the characters (mostly Pattison, but still . . . ) and a score that enhances the emotional connection to the story and lends a bit of a genre-bending flair to it all.

[Mr Sausage]

Yeah, twist was a poor choice of words on my part. And while the secret is worth preserving, it’s still the catalyst for all the actually interesting stuff, as dom intuited, so the film’s worth seeing even if spoiled.

[Never Cursed]

Euphoria Derangement Season starts early this year:

I fear that this is at least partly, and through no fault of her own, a Zendaya issue. I was reminded, unhappily, of “Malcolm & Marie” (2021), in which the director and writer, Sam Levinson (of “Euphoria” fame), cast her as a recovering drug addict, turning her scantily attired body and her howls of resentment into a voyeuristic spectacle. “The Drama” treats her better than that, but to no more substantial effect: rather than messily exploiting her, it reduces her to a tidy blank. Either way, you have to wonder: What is it about Zendaya that compels certain filmmakers—and, there’s no way around it, certain white male filmmakers—to pelt her with gobs of unexplored trauma? Do they think suffering looks good on her? Does her air of youthful innocence provide just the touch of sugar they need to make the hard-core medicine go down?

[Mr Sausage]

A real ‘physician, heal thyself’ kinda comment. In order to indict these directors, the commenter has to treat Zendaya as the very thing they’re trying to save her from: she’s a doll or a child being acted upon and not, you know, a grown woman making her own career choices. At no point does the author wonder why Zendaya likes to choose these kinda of roles. It’s really the commenter who treats her as a “tidy blank.”

People these days have highly sophisticated critical vocabularies and very unsophisticated critical sensibilities. The above is a great example of someone very familiar with the jargon of clinical psychology and critical theory, but no real sense of how basic dramatic story telling works. So they generate a seemingly complex critique, but all it amounts to is pathologizing the basic tenets of drama while showing no sense for how that drama is generating meaning. Suspicion and paranoia instead of genuine criticism. So much discourse these days isn’t searching for meaning but error.

[Never Cursed]

The above is a great example of someone very familiar with the jargon of clinical psychology and critical theory, but no real sense of how basic dramatic story telling works. So they generate a seemingly complex critique, but all it amounts to is pathologizing the basic tenets of drama while showing no sense for how that drama is generating meaning. Suspicion and paranoia instead of genuine criticism. So much discourse these days isn’t searching for meaning but error.

And this "someone," to be clear, is one of the most famous film critics in the US - a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism winner in the past couple years! (He also leads some of the selection for the New York Film Festival). I'm not bringing this up to invalidate your point - far from it - but rather to demonstrate how rough the current state of affairs is that this writing is pretty close to top of the (mainstream) pile.

[Mr Sausage]

Jesus. I read your post on tapatalk, so no name was listed for the quote, and assumed it was some random internet commentator. That our Pulitzer winners sound indistinguishable from nameless internet scolds is just depressing.

[therewillbeblus]

Mr Sausage made many great points about the morality involved so I don't have to. This is a layered, wonderfully original examination of humanity in a social environment. It's absolutely hysterical, but its laughs come from a place of complex emotions, always with a nervous bite and often a strong dose of sadness intertwined. Or sometimes they're evoked because of discomfort, self-reflexively engaging with the drama onscreen. Everything in this, from its themes to its humor, is catnip for me (and as someone who just got married in Boston -where this was shot- many peripheral moments hit hard too). After the film, my wife -who cautiously liked this- asked me, "But why would someone make a movie like that?" There are many correct answers to that question, but more than anything, it's because film as an art form is here to provoke emotions in us. And this provoked something novel in me, like no film has probably done in quite this way before. That's something to celebrate.

[swo17]

Congratulations!

[therewillbeblus]

Thanks!

Spoiler

The whole confession scene is fascinating, because it's hard to disentangle the rejection Emma receives. There's something viscerally distasteful about her revelation, and yet she's also the only person whose worst decision hurt no one but herself. Charlie cyberbullied someone until the whole family potentially had to uproot (and given what we know about cyberbullying, it could've itself been the cause of either suicide or a shooting); Mike shielded himself while his girlfriend continued to get bit by a potentially rabid dog; and Rachel inflicted something traumatic and abusive on a mentally disabled boy, whose physical safety in the end was accidental. Everyone did something very bad to someone else; Emma is convicted merely of planning something. Of course what she planned was grotesque and involved deliberate death and mayhem. But, still, in large part she's rejected for the taint of the thought itself, for having touched a very American hell that most wish to hold at arm's length.

Spoiler

To go further, Emma wound up incidentally becoming a strong advocate against gun violence, even becoming the face of the movement - once she was given an opening to be a 'part of', filling that hole of belongingness. She's the only character who actually sublimated her issues into something societally constructive, and is now ironically being eviscerated by that society.

[nicolas]

Congratulations on your wedding, twbb, and glad to hear that you enjoyed the film so much!

[swo17]

To be clear, I was congratulating twbb for having enjoyed the movie

[Mr Sausage]

Thanks!

Spoiler

The whole confession scene is fascinating, because it's hard to disentangle the rejection Emma receives. There's something viscerally distasteful about her revelation, and yet she's also the only person whose worst decision hurt no one but herself. Charlie cyberbullied someone until the whole family potentially had to uproot (and given what we know about cyberbullying, it could've itself been the cause of either suicide or a shooting); Mike shielded himself while his girlfriend continued to get bit by a potentially rabid dog; and Rachel inflicted something traumatic and abusive on a mentally disabled boy, whose physical safety in the end was accidental. Everyone did something very bad to someone else; Emma is convicted merely of planning something. Of course what she planned was grotesque and involved deliberate death and mayhem. But, still, in large part she's rejected for the taint of the thought itself, for having touched a very American hell that most wish to hold at arm's length.

Spoiler

To go further, Emma wound up incidentally becoming a strong advocate against gun violence, even becoming the face of the movement - once she was given an opening to be a 'part of', filling that hole of belongingness. She's the only character who actually sublimated her issues into something societally constructive, and is now ironically being eviscerated by that society.

Spoiler

Very true. Unlike every other character, her worst action became the catalyst for her best, her passionate advocacy for real social change. Outwardly, she is the only person changed for the better as a result of her flaws. And yet...

The easy fungability of Emma's passions and advocacies, the seeming lack of a moral or ethical conviction behind them, does raise uncomfortable questions about their, and her, authenticity. The wonderful balancing act of the movie is how it makes you feel Emma is unfairly victimized while also feeling that she's guilty of...something. It's this insolvable, amorphous thing that drives everyone in the movie mental, and I love that I can't quite place my finger on the source of my own discomfort here, either. Maybe it's because Emma is a good person mainly because good actions help her fit in with good people and good society, and that's what she wants, to fit in. The naked admission that goodness is just social belonging does strike sharply at a vulnerability we all share: that our morals and ethics are received, and we are social creatures who seek to belong.

[wattsup32]

Thanks!

Spoiler

To go further, Emma wound up incidentally becoming a strong advocate against gun violence, even becoming the face of the movement - once she was given an opening to be a 'part of', filling that hole of belongingness. She's the only character who actually sublimated her issues into something societally constructive, and is now ironically being eviscerated by that society.

This point building on Sausages observation rang out for me as well. I couldn't help but connect it to a constant theme that recurs for me which is that we, as a society, seem to care a lot more about people's words than their actions.

And, while not directly on point, there is a bit of this in the Chang criticism Sausage noted. In his mind, his written criticism is supposed to a truer take on the career of a sophisticated and seasoned actor with autonomy than the career choices that woman makes. I don't know, maybe I'm stretching my point too far.

[Toland's Mitchell]

However, I'm here not to post about the film, but to laud the trailer. It did what a trailer is supposed to do: make me want to see the film. And, it did it without doing what almost every trailer does these days: tell you the entire film including the ending.

And that is why I don't watch movie trailers. Ever. So many movies have been spoiled by them. When I go to the theaters, I play on my phone during the trailers, and ignore them. When the lights dim, that's my cue to put my phone away.

Anyway, I saw The Drama today and loved it! I don't have anything more to add as Sausage's post says it all.

Congrats blus on your wedding!

[Roger Ryan]

While I'm late to the reception here, I'll only add that I found Borgli's first American feature Dream Scenario to be a disappointing Kaufman-lite exercise which had a few highlights but didn't seem to want to fully explore its high concept. The Drama, on the other hand, takes a simpler idea and wrings it mercilessly for every drop of pitch black satire it can. Which is to say, don't let a lukewarm reaction to the filmmaker's first A24 feature dissuade you from seeing this one - it works brilliantly from beginning to end.

[Lowry_Sam]

A 40 minute NYT podcast/video commentary problematizing the film's depiction of interracial relationships & black characters.

[domino harvey]

I’m good

[Never Cursed]

They're calling it the best use of 40 minutes of your one and only life yet known to man

[swo17]

In the opening of this video, is it not problematic how this guy talks about Zendaya's eyes? She's a whole person!

[therewillbeblus]

She also only has one name when most people get two

[Lowry_Sam]

My take is that it's exactly what the NYT does: cater to an audience who were once idealistic liberal college students but have become part of the managerial class. So they put out content that gives them the feeling of academic engagement & liberal sentiments but doesn't really engage in any substantive way with actual arguments.

At the same time The Atlantic just put out a piece about how short-format content now rules...so they (and NPR) are not winning over the young folks with this stuff (which I'm sure the content editors have convinced themselves). Despite being older & stodgier and ripe for this stuff, I too lost interest before the 10 minute mark.

[therewillbeblus]

4K and blu-ray editions coming in July from A24. Bonus features:

-Commentary with Costume Designer Katina Danabassis, Production Designer Zosia Mackenzie, & Co-editor Joshua Raymond Lee
-“Unpacking the Drama” Making-of Featurette
-Wardrobe & Camera Test with Commentary by Katina Danabassis
-“Relationship Hotline” Promo
-Charlie & Emma Wedding Video
-Set of six collectible postcards illustrated by Kristina Tzekova