The Drama Movie Review, According To The Three Stages of a Relationship

PSA: Some spoilers ahead

By Grace De Luna | 2nd April 2026

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to witness what could potentially be the new generation of rom-coms. I had the chance to watch The Drama, an A24 “rom-com” directed by Kristoffer Borgli, a week before its nationwide release. This movie has been on my radar for ages because of three main reasons: 1 – A24, 2 – Robert Pattinson, and 3 – Zendaya. Based on experience, A24 movies are best enjoyed with no expectations. Which is why I went into this movie blind with a large bucket of popcorn and a good ol’ Coke Zero in hand. Like any good love story, let’s break down the movie like the three stages of a relationship – honeymoon, conflict, and commitment.

Quick facts

The Drama is written and directed by Norwegian filmmaker Kristoffer Borgli. This is his second A24-produced movie, following Dream Scenario (released in 2023, starring Nicolas Cage), which marked his first collaboration with the American studio.

If I get a penny for every Robert Pattinson and Zendaya movie coming out this year, I will be three pennies richer. This iconic duo is booked and busy, starring together along with a star-studded cast, in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey and Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Three.

The honeymoon stage

At first, The Drama plays like it knows exactly what you want, and is more than happy to give it to you. There’s a meet-cute straight out of a ‘90s rom-com playbook: innocent charm, soft lighting, and the kind of chemistry between Robert Pattinson and Zendaya that feels engineered in a lab for TikTok edits. He’s Charlie, a slightly bumbling museum curator with an Englishman charm; she’s Emma, composed, luminous, and just mysterious enough to feel expensive (we don’t even find out what she does for a living).

Director Kristoffer Borgli leans hard into this early sweetness by building a relationship that looks convincing until you start noticing the details. And that’s the point. Because beneath the aesthetic polish, Borgli is already planting the cracks: awkward pauses, questionable smiles, and the creeping sense that someone is hiding something. It’s romantic, yes, but in the way Instagram couples are romantic. You believe it, but only because you’re not looking too closely.

As soon as the opening credits started rolling, I couldn’t help but let out a little ‘aww’ as the lovely couple danced together to “I Want To Lay With You”. But when I saw Ari Aster (known for his movies Midsommar, Hereditary, Bugonia, among others) as one of the producers, I was on high alert. I knew I was in for a ride.

The conflict stage

Then comes the question that shakes things up: “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?” This part of the movie does not gently pivot – it shoots right to the heart, quite literally and figuratively.

Without spoiling the exact mechanics (the film itself treats it like both a punchline and a moral grenade), Emma reveals a deeply disturbing truth from her past that completely destabilises not just the relationship, but the genre itself. What begins as a romantic comedy turns into something closer to psychological satire, forcing both Charlie and the audience to ask an uncomfortable question: how well can you ever really know someone? This is where Borgli’s use of reality as an eye-opener in his stories thrives. The film spirals into a series of social and emotional implosions. Wedding preparation meetings turn into confessionals, love warped into interrogation, vulnerability into spectacle. The discomfort is the point. You’re not supposed to laugh easily. You’re supposed to laugh and then immediately feel bad about it. As the plot starts to unravel, I felt like that person who happens to stumble upon the middle of someone else’s really awkward conversation.

Pattinson is particularly sharp here, as Charlie starts unravelling in real time, clinging to the idea of love like it’s a dissertation he forgot how to defend. Zendaya, meanwhile, refuses to explain herself. Her performance sits in that unsettling space between vulnerability and opacity, turning Emma into someone who can’t be easily explained or categorised.

Alana Haim is a revelation in this movie. Not only is she a marvellous one out of three in the pop-rock band Haim, but she also played the role of the antagonist, Rachel, so well that I couldn’t help but clench my fists a little when she shows up on screen.

The commitment stage

By the time The Drama reaches its final stretch, it’s no longer interested in whether Charlie and Emma should stay together. It’s asking something far more cynical: what does commitment even mean when the truth itself feels unstable?

Borgli frames love as a kind of mutual agreement to accept the parts of each other that don’t quite add up. The closer the wedding gets, the less it feels like a celebration and more like a test. How much can you absorb before love turns into something else entirely?

What The Drama ultimately commits to is discomfort. It’s messy, provocative, occasionally exhausting – but never boring. Like any volatile relationship, it leaves you unsure whether you’ve just experienced something profound or deeply questionable.

With the whole truth laid out, the movie gives everyone (audience and characters) a choice: to hit reset or to abandon all hope. As for Charlie and Emma, as cliché as it sounds, I would like to believe they chose love.

The verdict

The Drama is less of a love story and more of a stress test of relationships, morality, beliefs, and how much discomfort an audience is willing to sit with. It won’t work for everyone, and that’s not its intention. But in a landscape of increasingly sanitised romance, The Drama stands out precisely because it feels so unwilling to please.

Borgli artistically uses different forms of media to represent timelines, which I think is a great touch of visual nostalgia. He introduces flashbacks through old-school video camera/VGA webcam footage in a 3:4 ratio and blends it seamlessly into the rest of the film.

The Drama is a movie of the times – a real reflection of how it really is to be in a committed relationship in this day and age. Humanity has been exposed to all sorts of truths that not only affect their personal beliefs, but also their perspective of others, especially the ones they value the most. We have people like Emma, who might have done some questionable things in the past and are now ready to turn over a new leaf. Because truth be told, we all have pasts that we can’t undo, but don’t identify with anymore. It is a part of who we are. We just hope that we can be loved and accepted – all versions of us included.

Then we have people like Rachel, who are firm in their beliefs. Even if that means all connections that have been built up through the years can just go out the window.

But what makes me hopeful is people like Charlie, who operate on empathy and look at things more closely based on the collection of truths. Because at the end of the day, he’s also not perfect. Nobody is.

I say “I do” to this movie. It is worth watching and is definitely a conversational piece, for better or for worse. Catch The Drama in cinemas near you starting 2 April.