By Joanna Orland
SPOILER WARNING: This article contains spoilers for ‘The Drama’
The shocking twist is all anyone can talk about when it comes to The Drama. Even though it’s revealed at the start of the film and is more of a catalyst than an actual twist, if you didn’t know it was coming, it’s a pretty big surprise. It’s a failure of the film’s marketing, writing, and comedic sensibility that the appalling revelation is part of The Drama in the first place, especially since it is otherwise a wonderful romantic comedy that touches upon hypocrisy and forgiveness in a time of cancel culture.
Emma (Zendaya) and Charlie (Robert Pattinson) are in love and about to be married. At a dinner with their best friends, Rachel (Alana Haim) and Mike (Mamoudou Athie), they play a game in which they reveal the worst things they’ve ever done. As Mike, Rachel, and Charlie reveal their deeds (which are all very awful, by the way), the spotlight then falls on Emma. In a somewhat drunken state, she hesitantly reveals that she once planned and came extremely close to carrying out a school shooting.
Marketing ‘The Drama’ as a Rom-Com Is Not Appropriate for Its Subject Matter
The biggest failure of The Drama is its marketing. With such deeply dark and disturbing subject matter, audiences need to be forewarned about what they’re about to see. Especially in today’s unfortunate age, when school shootings and gun violence are prevalent and have emotionally or physically hurt so many people, a trigger warning feels necessary. If you went into The Drama expecting a light-hearted rom-com, you’d be in for a rude awakening.
It’s appalling that the marketing uses tragedy as a gimmick to present it as a twist when it’s actually a catalyst for the characters. The revelation happens near the start of the film and is the entire reason the characters go on their journeys. In fact, knowing the plot twist beforehand wouldn’t ruin the movie at all and, if anything, would help the audience to acclimatize to its jarring nature.
By not being upfront about it, the conversation surrounding The Drama has been reduced to the “twist”. Sure, it may garner hype, but it misses the entire point of the movie. No one is talking about the interesting ideas presented in the film – it’s just this audacious twist.
The “Twist” Distracts From the Main Point of ‘The Drama’
The premise of The Drama is solid enough without a tasteless twist. Obviously, the filmmakers were trying to think of one of the worst things imaginable for Emma to admit to, but such a serious revelation makes it hard to focus on anything else the film is trying to say. It also makes it tricky to focus on the great performances by Robert Pattinson and Zendaya when all you can think about is “Why did the filmmakers think this was OK?”
The Drama raises a lot of interesting questions about morality, hypocrisy, forgiveness, and love. As Mike, Rachel, and Charlie reveal their misdeeds, each one of them shares something that has tangibly hurt someone. What Emma reveals is shocking and awful, but she was a troubled girl who had very dark thoughts, never saw them through, and then turned her life around to become an anti-gun activist. Are we solely defined by our past misdeeds, even if they lead to a greater good? How can we judge someone for their misdeeds when ours are just as bad, possibly worse? Are thoughts worse than actions? How much do we truly know each other, even in love and marriage? Is there an irredeemable moral threshold that we can cross, even if we act towards our redemption?
‘The Drama’ Runs Deeper Than Its Twist
Not just an allegory for cancel culture and the questions surrounding it, The Drama also touches upon how gender and race can affect how you’re perceived and treated. It’s surely by design that it’s Zendaya’s character who makes the admission and not Pattinson’s. Statistically, it’s mostly white men who commit gun violence, but by focusing on a mixed-race woman, the film suggests that the standards for understanding and acceptance are different. Clearly, gun violence is awful and unacceptable, but society is often more willing to extend forgiveness to a white man when he’s the one involved (see Kyle Rittenhouse, etc.).
The Drama demonstrates how we’re obsessed with holding others accountable but fail to hold ourselves to the same standards. Even Emma is guilty of this hypocrisy, as she fires her wedding DJ for smoking heroin on the street. Charlie is guilty of it by minimizing the cyberbullying he inflicted on a fellow classmate, who had to move out of town because of him. Rachel is guilty of it by not admitting that she locked a disabled child in a closet, failing to confess even the next day when a search party was called. Mike is guilty of it by putting the blame on his ex’s personality when he describes how he once used her as a human shield against a rabid dog. Everyone is guilty of scrutinizing and judging others, even when they are devastated by the lack of empathy shown towards their own mistakes.
The “Twist” in ‘The Drama’ Is Not Exactly Rife With Comedy
Even with much to say, The Drama at its core is a romantic comedy, and there is just nothing funny about school shootings. The film uses flashbacks and light-hearted takes on gun violence, and it becomes an awkward and uncomfortable watch. There is nothing humorous about a young and troubled girl planning a school shooting – even if we know she never goes through with it.
By making light of gun violence and glorifying the imagery, it humanizes perpetrators and minimizes the severity of the situation. It tries to comment on the root issues of the gun violence that plagues America, but its tone leans more towards black comedy than commentary. It is truly such a dark and disturbing issue that it’s incongruent to treat it so irreverently, especially alongside the imagery of a child planning these atrocities.
The revelation in The Drama is a step too far. It’s a hyperbolic catalyst that overstates the film’s ideas, as it detracts rather than adds to its main thesis. The twist is a distraction from the real drama of The Drama, begging the question of whether it can be forgiven for its own crude mistake.
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The Drama is available on HBO Max from July 31st, 2026