I Can't Believe They Did It

I’ve never watched Sex and the City, other than a few episodes here and there with my former roommates and what seems like an endless supply of memes on social media. But, I do always think about Lexi Featherston ranting and raving about the end of New York.

“When did everybody stop smoking?” she asks to awkward silence. “When did everybody pair off? This used to be the most exciting city in the world … now it’s nothing but smoking near a fucking open window. New York is over. O.V.E.R. Over. No one’s fun anymore. What ever happened to fun? God. I’m so bored I could die.”

Well … she gets her wish, as she immediately falls out of a window and dies. Which is as good an introduction as any to one of the most fun movies of the year, Kristoffer Borgli’s The Drama, starring Zendaya and Robert Pattinson.

🚨🚨🚨 SPOILER WARNING 🚨🚨🚨

The Drama has almost immediately become one of the most talked-about and contested movies of the year, and the last few years, to be honest. And for good reason, it wants to be.

You don’t frame your movie as one that revolves around a shocking twist unless you’re ready to immediately join the discourse and get picked apart. Also, to be clear, it’s less a twist than it is a reveal that changes the course of the story. But we’ll get to that later.

Now, yes, part of that is marketing and A24’s desire to stay in the zeitgeist, but it’s also exactly what writer and director Kristoffer Borgli wants. He’s essentially a little stinker, poking and prodding the audience with sight gags, fascinating editing decisions back and forth and a script handmade to make certain people angry. He just so happened to have also made an insightful and awfully funny movie all the while.

So, here’s where we need to get into the plot. Because there’s no other way to talk about it, without getting into the minutiae:

The Drama is about a (really hot) couple played by Zendaya and Robert Pattinson in the days leading up to their idyllic Massachusetts wedding. We start with them writing their respective speeches and see them practice their first dance, and then (almost out of nowhere) disaster strikes: They taste test food and wine for their upcoming party, get drunk and start talking about the worst things they’ve ever done.

It’s a fun game. Until it’s not.

Each member of the two couples sitting at the table reveals some trauma, ending with Zendaya’s out-of-nowhere claim that she once thought about and eventually planned a school shooting, which got delayed and eventually reneged … because of another school shooting.

It’s so outlandish that Pattinson’s Charlie can’t help but laugh, until he eventually realizes that she’s telling the truth. In turn, he starts imagining himself holding hands with the teenage potential school shooter and the downwards spiral continues and continues until we eventually witness the worst thing he’s ever done.

What could easily be an evil and poorly-timed look at an American crisis, which will seemingly never stop, ends up becoming one man’s existential predicament, a dark comedy about how little we know one another and a romance between two people trying to make it work. There’s a reason a story like this would only work in the United States:

Creating any type of art about gun control is always iffy at best and a disaster at the worst, which is what makes this entire movie feel like a tightrope walk. It’s one thing to have a character reveal themselves to be a school shooter; it’s another thing to show the teenage version of that character going through the steps. It’s bold and kind of remarkable that this exists in the world we live in, which always feels focus-grouped to death, so that every movie hits every possible quadrant.

Although I was pretty mixed on Borgli’s last two movies—Sick of Myself, which ran out of gas pretty quickly and Dream Scenario, which never did enough with its enticing idea—I found myself entranced with The Drama and Zendaya and Pattinson’s go-for-broke performances.

This may sound silly, but it means something that two stars at this level would take a risk with material like this that could blow up in their face. Pattinson has been making off-kilter choices (The Lighthouse, Mickey 17, Die My Love, etc.) and it’s refreshing that someone like Zendaya would follow suit when she could easily hide in blockbuster-land with (the admittedly fantastic) Dune movies and (the perfectly fine) Spider-Man movies. And, to be clear, this is probably the best work she’s ever done.

Even I, an individual who finds cringe comedy exhausting, couldn’t help but admire The Drama, with my head in my hands (plus a bit of shaking) for what felt like … the entire second half of the movie.

Ultimately, the movie works. It’s uproariously funny at moments and even had a scene or two in which our audience gasped—I even heard someone say “no” out loud. The group of us who saw it opening night even had a little powwow afterwards, discussing Rachel (obviously insane), the final act (what are you doing, Charlie?) and the apartment (god, what an apartment). That’s how you movie.

There’s been a bit of a reset as of late when it comes to theatrical movies. They’re becoming more and more eventized in both good and bad ways. IMAX has become critical to the box office’s survival, as have big-name directors getting blank checks to pursue their passion projects. Names like Nolan, Gerwig and Peele (and even Aster, Eggers and Fennell) are now just as important again as Marvel and Star Wars.

I think what A24’s doing is a much smaller version of this eventization. You can’t just make a movie anymore. You have to make a movie that can enter the zeitgeist. That can be meme’d, argued over and discussed ad nauseam, so as to slowly make back its money and create more bankable stars.

Ari Aster’s Eddington was a similar American horror story that stuck around. It’s not surprising that he was a producer on The Drama. And the same can be said for Civil War, Weapons and The Substance. Not only were these all well-made and captivating movies to various degrees, but they were able to say something if you were actually listening.

Obviously, The Drama is the most electric fence of an idea in this respect, and it’s fun in how shocking it gets and how well it works. If the biggest stars we have are open to such startling and deeply funny material, the movies are actually in a pretty good place.

Yes, it’s in bad taste. And yes, that’s the point.

Anyway, two thumbs up from me. Even if I was having mini panic attacks for half the runtime.