Oh, ‘The Drama’

If you’re thinking of telling your fiancé the worst thing you’ve ever done, mere days before your wedding, maybe don’t.

So goes ‘The Drama’ (2026), a new dramedy starring Zendaya and Robert Pattinson, which has viewers divided about its central twist.

But before all hell breaks loose, we meet Emma (Zendaya) and Charlie (Pattinson) who meet in a café. Though reading in cafés has a newfound and somewhat baffling reputation for being performative, Emma is reading with her earphones on.

Charlie, immediately intrigued, approaches her but speaks into her one deaf ear and gets no response. How Emma lost her hearing? You’ll be flabbergasted. But I digress.

In classic romantic comedy style, Emma and Charlie’s meeting is cute, offbeat and they promptly fall in love. A few years later, they’re doing a wedding menu tasting and they decide to play a drunken game with their friends Mike (Mamoudou Athie) and Rachel (Alana Haim). The game is simple: Tell everyone the worst thing you’ve ever done.

After some pretty appalling revelations, Emma offers her lore. The worst thing she’s ever done is bad. It’s shocking. But . . . she never actually did anything. Just thought about it, planned it and almost did it. In this case and given this particular ideation, that’s bad enough and everyone who hears her confession crashes out.

None as thoroughly as Charlie who is set to marry Emma in less than a week.

Tonally, the movie shifts.

What started out as a relatively typical romantic comedy becomes a disturbing, awkward and uncomfortable exploration of a traumatic topic as well as a question of the statute of limitations on the more horrifying aspects of our former selves.

The film also illustrates how punitive society can be when black women or women of colour make mistakes, even after they have actively, visibly and avidly attempted to atone. Even for something they didn’t actually do. And this in contrast to men and to their white woman counterparts who are often extended far more grace, understanding and forgiveness.

While this is a movie you can’t deeply review without revealing Emma’s confession which is central to one’s experience of the movie, one can say you will have to stew in some moral dilemmas.

You’ll also have to get past the film’s sometimes comedic tone in its treatment of its raw and harrowing subject matter and see if, ultimately, you think it works.

See ‘The Drama’ to appreciate Zendaya and Pattinson’s nuanced and distressing performances and because it serves up something a little different.

This is one that will leave you uncomfortable, introspecting and vowing to keep your mouth shut when asked one simple question: What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?

‘The Drama’ (2026) is now showing at Ster-Kinekor at Maerua Mall.

– martha@namibian.com.na; Martha Mukaiwa on Twitter and Instagram; marthamukaiwa.com

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