The Drama
2026
The Drama is (I am told) the first of three films this year starring Zendaya and Robert Pattinson. It is also, ironically, best labeled as a comedy, albeit a very dark one. But don’t make the mistake of thinking that this comedy only has your amusement in mind. This film is about a lot of heavy and vital stuff that needs to be discussed…but I can see that Americans might hear it discussed best through a comedy right now.
What types of things does it want to look at? The unsettling norms of current American culture. The hypocrisy of virtue-signaling hipness. The fact that anybody is capable of anything, given the right circumstances. That empathy is a word thrown around but a concept little used. That stopping yourself from doing something destructive is an act of praiseworthy bravery, not proof that you’re literally crazy for almost doing the thing. That most identity politics are built around performative, self-congratulatory outrage. That “love is radical acceptance.” That we should confess our sins one to another so that we may be healed. And that healing hurts.
That’s all. Just stuff like that.
The film does manage to be frequently funny, although it’s not humor you would laugh aloud at. It is also frequently maddening, as we watch people behaving despicably. Ohh, I got mad, especially at Alana Haim’s character. And my heart broke for the central couple who can’t seem to handle a situation simply because of how everyone is telling them that they should handle it. Frankly, this film is more important than 85% of the movies that will come out this year.
Plot? OK, a taste. Zendaya plays a thirty-year-old woman about to marry her live-in boyfriend (Pattinson, who gets called “obviosuly handsome” with his hair constantly looking like that?). One fateful night, as they get tipsy with the matron of honor and best man, Haim goads them into making a game out of sharing their worst deeds with each other. I’ll just say that even if Zendaya were not the last person to take a turn, the game would have stopped immediately with her confession anyway. Suddenly, the safest relationships in her life prove desperately unsafe, as all the excuses and jokes applied to her friends’ shameful deeds are declared irrelevant to her not-even-carried-out tween angst. What should be a moment of real (and difficult) coming together—a confession of trauma that should be met with compassion—is instantly turned into “spot the psychopath (and it’s totally not me).”
If you’re looking for a film to jumpstart some important and complex discussions among any group—especially one of Christians—I honestly ask you to watch this together. Just have a long discussion time set aside directly afterward, and don’t make the multifarious mistakes the characters in the film do when discussing all that comes up.