The Drama

The Theater of Intimacy

If marriage is a public performance of private devotion, then *The Drama* is Kristoffer Borgli’s attempt to burn down the stage. In his previous works, *Sick of Myself* and *Dream Scenario*, Borgli dissected the narcissism of the digital age with the precision of a surgeon using a rusty scalpel. Here, he turns that uncomfortable gaze toward the "wedding industrial complex," delivering a film that is ostensibly a romance but plays more like a psychological horror story about the terrifying realization that you might be marrying a stranger.



Set against the stark, academic chill of Boston and Cambridge, the film introduces us to Emma (Zendaya) and Charlie (Robert Pattinson) days before their nuptials. They are the picture-perfect archetype of a modern power couple—poised, beautiful, and utterly exhausted by the effort of maintaining those appearances. Borgli creates a visual language that feels suffocatingly curated; the cinematography is clean, almost sterile, mirroring the couple’s carefully managed public image. The camera lingers too long on forced smiles and trembling hands, creating a sense of voyeuristic dread that permeates even the most benign rehearsal dinners.

The film’s inciting incident—an "unexpected turn" that derails the wedding week—is less a plot twist and more a unraveling of reality. Without spoiling the narrative architecture, the film shifts from a frantic wedding comedy into a surreal interrogation of identity. Pattinson, shedding his blockbuster armor, delivers a performance of twitchy, neurotic vulnerability that recalls the best of his indie work. He plays Charlie not as a hero, but as a man whose entire personality is a response to being perceived. Zendaya matches him with a razor-sharp portrayal of a woman whose patience for the "performance" of love has violently run out.



The centerpiece of the film, and perhaps the year’s most squirm-inducing sequence, is the "pre-wedding photoshoot." What begins as a standard montage of affection dissolves into a grueling endurance test. The photographer asks for "natural joy," but Emma and Charlie can only produce rictus grins that border on the grotesque. Borgli holds the shot for an agonizing duration, forcing the audience to sit in the silence of their disconnect. It is a masterclass in "cringe," not for the sake of comedy, but to expose the tragic gap between who these people are and who they are pretending to be for their guests.

Borgli’s script is relentless in its critique of how we commodify our relationships. The wedding week becomes a pressure cooker where the "truth" is an inconvenience to the schedule. The supporting cast, particularly Alana Haim, functions as a Greek chorus of enablers, more concerned with the floral arrangements than the obvious psychological disintegration of the bride and groom.



Ultimately, *The Drama* is a film about the terror of being known. It suggests that the most frightening thing about marriage isn't the commitment, but the possibility that the person standing across from you at the altar is playing a role you didn't write. Borgli has crafted a "romance" that leaves you not with a warm glow, but with the cold, bracing realization that love is the most dangerous improvisation of all. It is a stunning, cynical, and undeniably human piece of cinema that cements Borgli as one of our most vital cultural satirists.