‘The Drama’ (1h45m), directed by Kristoffer Borgli
I thought Zendaya was a singer – she is – but she can also act, much to my astonishment. As one half of a Manhattan golden couple in the run-up to their – of course – picture-perfect wedding day, she plays Emma to Robert Pattinson’s Charlie, two beautiful young people with money, talent and looks, about to tie the knot. What could possibly go wrong?
Well, quite a lot actually. As they wade their way through their wedding admin – writing speeches, organising wine tastings, rehearsal dinners and so on – the chance to have a drunken night off with two of their best friends, Mike (Mamoudou Athie) and Rachel (Alana Haim), seems irresistible. At dinner after lashings of wine, the fab four decide to “fess up” to the worst things each of them has ever done. So far, so pedestrian – a bit of cyberbullying in school, a dash of cruelty and cowardice – but when it comes to Emma’s turn she shares something so profoundly disturbing that it not only silences the entire table but the audience, too. Someone on screen asks: “Is she serious?” before Emma throws up, underlining the point that, yes, she is serious, very serious.
The director, Kristoffer Borgli, is renowned for making uncomfortable films that skewer characters trying to show their best selves to the camera and to the world in general, something we can all identify with, and here he’s done it in spades. What Emma shares rips away the gilded veneer of her life, revealing the darkness beneath; to say it’s not pretty is a vast understatement. One can hardly bear to look.
Is this an act of courage or a piece of drunken oversharing? Is it true or is she making it up? Nobody knows, other than Emma of course and, cleverly, exactly why she does it remains a mystery. Even drunk she must know what she’s doing, one imagines, but who knows. This is the kind of confession that should only be made to a priest through a grille, not at some trendy restaurant in New York.
The other three are horrified, most of all Charlie, her about-to-be husband, whose imagination goes into overdrive as he visualises his beautiful fiancée carrying out the act she has confessed to planning when she was still merely a schoolgirl. The fact that she didn’t actually go through with it doesn’t make it any better. Once something has been said it cannot be unsaid. Has she changed or is she still the same person, just an older version? Who is this person? Is it a fever dream or is it real?
This edginess keeps not only Charlie but the audience on tenterhooks, brilliantly underscored by the fact that the wedding preparations continue apace, perfectly illustrating the hideous, out-of-control social juggernaut that modern weddings have become; neither party feels able to make a direct break; neither is completely sure they really want to, adding to the hallucinatory quality the film has managed to sustain from the word go, when we see Charlie stalking Emma in a café and contriving to talk to her, a new take on the “meet cute”. In the beginning, cleverly, he seems to be the weird one, not Emma; his self-conscious Englishness only adds (deliberately, one feels) to the unseating jerkiness of the narrative. The viewer can’t rest during this film; it’s all just much too uncomfortable. Borgli’s editing technique is to cut scenes just before his audience has had enough, introducing a kind of unsettling topsy-turviness into his developing story, especially as it gathers pace towards the denouement.
As an actor, Robert Pattinson is in his element here. He’s always appeared to be somewhat conflicted about his life and how he should deal with things. This rather appealing sense of inner uncertainty about himself and his relation to the world makes him perfect for this role as the tormented groom. As if to illustrate this further, he goes on to do something so stupid just before the wedding that it allows Emma to justifiably seize back the moral high ground, almost but not quite making them equals again.
Zendaya is sensational as the bride in this doomed romcom/black comedy/morality play for our times. Even when she’s unseated by the reaction to her confession, she never quite falls apart in the same way as her husband-to-be, thereby subtly allowing the viewer to believe that they may just be a really good match for one another after all. Game, set and match to Borgli.
