Joseph Moser
“I used to be ugly” at first seems like a throwaway line in the opening act of the buzzy new movie “The Drama,” but as spoken by the female lead, Emma (Zendaya), those words become more and more significant when complications mount for her and her husband-to-be, Charlie (Robert Pattinson). Although this film gets a lot wrong about the logistics of weddings, it has ample biting humor and abundant insights regarding the perversity of love and friendship in adolescence and adulthood. If you can, avoid reading anything in advance about the major revelation of the movie because it’s quite a jaw-dropper. “The Drama” is now playing at both the Capitol and Savoy theaters in Montpelier.
The writer-director is the talented provocateur Kristoffer Borgli, a Norwegian who clearly understands American culture very well. His previous movie is “Dream Scenario” (also set in the United States), but it could just as well be called “Nightmare Scenario,” which would be an apt title for Borgli’s latest too. In both “Dream Scenario” and “The Drama,” the main characters seem primed for incredible love and fulfillment, only to see their lives spectacularly disintegrate. While “Dream Scenario” depicts the travails of a schlubby professor played by Nicolas Cage, “The Drama” offers a different sort of cringey voyeuristic experience by presenting the humiliation and degradation of two beautiful young people.
The film opens with flashbacks cued by Charlie’s and Emma’s speech preparations for their impending nuptials. Their ominous meet-cute foregrounds some unusual issues for a glamourous movie couple: she is hearing impaired, and he is more than a bit of a liar and people pleaser.
Separately, Charlie and Emma recount to their friends Mike (Mamoudou Athie) and Rachel (Alana Haim) the progression of their romance, and we soon learn that Mike and Rachel are married to each other.
When the two couples meet for dinner to finalize plans for Charlie and Emma’s reception, they imbibe too much wine and broach the topic of the worst thing that each of them has ever done. Everyone’s admission is unsettling in some way, but Emma’s blindsides her fiancé and their friends. If you can guess where the movie heads from here, you are a far better prognosticator than I. Suffice it to say that the wedding reception, which is held at the same site as the fateful dinner conversation, does not proceed exactly as planned.
It must be said that the compressed week-of-the-wedding time frame of the movie is ridiculously implausible, as Charlie and Emma are still deciding on the food and deejay for their reception, working full-time, and seeing their friends in the handful of days before the big event. That shortcoming aside, “The Drama” succeeds as a comedy and as a vehicle for social commentary regarding a certain hot-button issue about which Americans maintain willful ignorance and atrocious complacency. The movie generates laughter, gasps, groans, and applause (several viewers in the Savoy clapped at the end when I saw it).
“The Drama” also boasts four strong performances. First, Pattinson, the former teen heartthrob squirming through all-too-human entanglements, is quite enthralling, and he gamely lays everything on the line with increasingly schlemiel-y antics, matching his stellar work in last year’s mostly lackluster “Mickey 17.”
Although Emma “used to be ugly,” Charlie’s ugliness intensifies before and during their wedding, and Pattinson makes this tailspin a grimly pathetic spectacle to behold. I was equally impressed with Zendaya for finding subtle nuances in the characterization of an elusive figure who is anything but the manic pixie dream girl stereotype of so many contemporary romantic comedies. As another character points out ruefully (but quite accurately), Zendaya’s Emma has “many layers.”
In addition, Mamoudou Athie is frequently hilarious as Mike, whose low-key attempts at mediating conflict and mitigating disaster are the yin to Charlie’s unhinged yang, and Alana Haim once again distinguishes herself as a screen presence of piercing intelligence and thrilling audacity. When Haim’s Rachel has her big speech, you feel her ire in your bones. Haim has so far made four films, and her acting has yet to be anything but brilliant.
Borgli’s references to Louis Malle (via dialogue) and Ingmar Bergman (by way of a conspicuous poster) give us a strong indication of his ambitions as a filmmaker. With “The Drama,” he boldly distorts the romantic comedy template to make a statement about the lies we tell ourselves and each other. When the glossy sheen comes off of our loved ones, what remains to anchor our relationships? That’s the question that lingers long after the laughter stops and the credits roll.
“The Drama” plays at the Capitol Theater and Savoy Theater in Montpelier through Thursday, April 23.
