Norwegian writer/director Kristoffer Borgli's nervy nightmare The Drama is an emotional wringer about cuddly New York couple Emma and Charlie (Zendaya and Robert Pattinson) preparing for their wedding that coming weekend and wrestling with the ages-old question "Do I really know the person I'm about to marry?"
While testing the wedding menu with buddies Rachel and Mike (Alana Haim and Mamoudou Athie), Emma and Charlie play a booze-induced game of "the worst thing I've ever done."
As signaled in the film's no-spoilers trailer, it's Emma's youthful "indiscretion" that throws a wrench into the wedding plans, sends her into ocillating fits of panic and denial, Charlie into paroxysms of anxiety, and Mike and Rachel scurrying for cover and for the hills, respectively, which is a huge problem as they are the maid of honor and best man.
This tale of truth and trust put me in mind of Neil Simon's urban (and urbane) comedies of marriage and miscommunication, but with an added dose of post-modern misanthropy.
Borgli intersperses into this story hilariously disorienting passages that may or may not represent reality, but the characters' dreams or wishes. The message? Take nothing for granted.
I suspect the cagey director foreshadowed the picture's sweet but murky last reel in the film's early scene when Charlie admits to Emma he had not really read the book she was carrying on the day they met. And so on that foundation of dishonesty The Drama rests.
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