The question of how much of one’s past should be revealed to a beloved fiancé in the lead-up to a wedding is a delicate tightrope walk. While significant issues are often wisely deferred until after the vows, the allure of youthful naivete can, at times, lead to the reckless excavation of deeply buried "worms," underestimating their size, abundance, or the difficulty of returning them to their metaphorical cans. This precarious situation forms the crux of Kristoffer Borgli’s latest cinematic offering, "The Drama," a film that masterfully blends high-concept premise with palpable high-anxiety, serving as a European-inflected satire of American bourgeois aspirations. The film positions itself in the disquieting, excoriating vein of directors like Ruben Östlund, whose "Force Majeure" dissected family dynamics under duress, and Thomas Vinterberg, whose "Festen" exposed familial secrets at a celebratory gathering.
The narrative centers on Charlie, portrayed with rumpled charm and bespectacled earnestness by Robert Pattinson. Charlie, a British art historian based in the United States, experiences a charmingly awkward meet-cute in a bustling coffee shop with the captivating Emma, brought to life by Zendaya. Mesmerized by her beauty as she engrosses herself in a book, Charlie bravely approaches. However, Emma, who is deaf in one ear and engrossed in music in the other, initially misses his stammered overtures. Charlie, misinterpreting her silence as disdain, is mortified. Yet, this initial misunderstanding quickly dissolves, paving the way for a burgeoning love story. The incident, seemingly trivial, is destined to become a cherished, uproarious anecdote for their wedding reception speech.
However, Borgli subtly imbues this seemingly innocuous scene with an undercurrent of unease, applying a psycho-horror stylistic lens to conventional rom-com tropes. The film’s sound design is deliberately unsettling, with eerie ambient noises swallowing silence and unsettlingly close-up shots looming large. A disquieting, dissonant woodwind melody underscores the budding romance, hinting at the psychological depths yet to be plumbed. As their wedding day draws inexorably nearer, Charlie and Emma find themselves at a boozy dinner with their close friends, Rachel (played by Alana Haim) and Mike (portrayed by Mamoudou Athie). In a moment of drunken candor, the friends dare each other to confess their most regrettable actions.
The Unveiling of a Dark Secret
It is during this intimate confession that Emma drops a bombshell. She reveals that at the age of fourteen, she meticulously planned to perpetrate a high-school shooting, a plan she ultimately abandoned. Her partial deafness, which she had previously attributed to a childhood infection, was, in fact, a consequence of holding her father’s assault rifle too close to her ear while practicing in the woods. This revelation immediately shifts the film’s tone from lighthearted romance to a tense psychological thriller, forcing the audience to re-evaluate the seemingly idyllic relationship.
Borgli crafts an exquisitely chilling and cynical reason for Emma’s decision to abandon her plan. At the precise moment she was reaching for the weapon concealed in her bag, news broke of another mass shooting unfolding at a local shopping mall, a tragedy that claimed the life of a mutual friend. Her meticulously crafted, horrific plan had been preempted and overshadowed by a real-world atrocity. This act of being "upstaged" by genuine violence, rather than moral compunction, is a denouement that would likely resonate with the dark sensibilities of Bret Easton Ellis.
Emma’s hope is that her friends will swiftly move past this startling confession or accept her assurance of present-day normalcy. However, the revelation leaves everyone profoundly shaken. The words, once spoken, cannot be unheard, and the image of their friend as a would-be perpetrator of mass violence proves indelible. Charlie, in particular, perceives the subtle cracks beginning to form in their picture-perfect relationship.
A Generational Anomaly or a Disturbing Trend?
"The Drama" thus emerges as a bold and provocatively offensive mashup of two distinct American cultural phenomena: the ubiquitous Hollywood marriage comedy and the tragically recurring specter of the high-school shooting. The film’s ingenious strength lies in its deliberate generic ambiguity. Is it a biting satire, a chilling thriller, or something else entirely? The tone with which Emma’s secret is presented remains intentionally uncertain, its status as a macabre, black-comic absurdity hinging on the audience’s willingness to accept Emma’s purported complete recovery from such a profound and disturbing inclination.
While female perpetrators of mass shootings are statistically rare compared to their male counterparts, Borgli’s script proactively addresses this by offering historical and psychological context for such extreme deviations from societal norms. The film implicitly raises questions about the psychological makeup of individuals capable of contemplating such acts, particularly during formative adolescent years. Data from the FBI and the Secret Service has consistently shown that while male shooters are more prevalent, instances of female involvement in school violence, though less frequent, are not entirely absent. These studies often point to complex factors including severe psychological distress, trauma, and a desire for notoriety or revenge.
Charlie, grappling with the implications of Emma’s confession, begins to harbor a gnawing suspicion: could Emma’s latent tendency towards violence resurface? The film unflinchingly presents the unsettling possibility that thousands of individuals, outwardly functioning members of society, harbor similar unfulfilled, violent impulses. These are the "secret near-murderers" who, for whatever reason, pivoted back to a life of perceived normality, their potentially catastrophic intentions never fully realized. This concept taps into a deep-seated societal anxiety about the hidden lives of those around us, the potential for darkness lurking beneath ordinary facades.
Examining the Aftermath and Artistic Choices
Where the film slightly falters, according to some analyses, is in its depiction of the immediate aftermath of Emma’s thwarted plan. The narrative offers less insight into teenage Emma’s behavior and coping mechanisms in the weeks and months following the actual shooting that, in essence, usurped her intended moment of infamy. Charlie’s persistent skepticism, even drawing parallels to the morally ambiguous protagonist in Louis Malle’s "Lacombe, Lucien," highlights a perceived lack of full exploration of Emma’s psychological trajectory post-incident. However, the film’s overall arc does present a form of reassuring, albeit dark, logic regarding Emma’s past self and her present identity. One might reasonably infer that in a truly functioning relationship, Emma and Charlie would have felt compelled to share such profound details with their closest friends, particularly the visibly distressed Rachel, to foster understanding and alleviate anxieties.
Furthermore, the film’s concluding moments have been subject to debate, with some critics suggesting that Borgli might have momentarily lost his nerve, opting for a less daring resolution than the film’s preceding audacious narrative arc might have warranted. The ending, therefore, remains a point of contention, leaving audiences to ponder the ultimate success of the director’s provocative vision.
"The Drama" shares the spiky, ingenious, and undeniably tasteless style that characterized Borgli’s previous film, "Dream Scenario," a film lauded for its surreal exploration of viral fame and Nicolas Cage’s meta-performance. Both films stand as superior examples of Borgli’s directorial prowess, arguably surpassing his earlier, more unsubtle narcissism comedy, "Sick of Myself." "The Drama" delivers a potent provocation, a true jeu d’esprit designed to elicit outrage and explore psychological meltdown with a degree of astuteness often absent in more conventionally serious cinematic endeavors. In essence, the film lives up to its title, offering a compelling, albeit uncomfortable, examination of the dramas that lie beneath the surface of seemingly perfect lives and relationships, especially when the specter of the past looms large on the horizon of a hopeful future. The film’s daring premise and execution have undeniably sparked conversation, a testament to its power to disturb, provoke, and ultimately, to resonate.
