Everyone is talking about The Drama. It’s the That Girl of the film industry right now, turning heads with its grainy noughties colour palette, and causing discourse on the internet with that plot twist. Ultimately it asks the big questions: how far does unrequited love really go, and can you ever really truly know the person you’re marrying?
The Drama proves romcoms certainly isn’t dying. In fact, the genre is just evolving into something grittier and more nuanced, and I’m going to need Hollywood to greenlight about a hundred more films like The Drama after watching it last weekend. Here’s why it’s so brilliant.
A romcom shouldn’t be picture perfect, and The Drama certainly wasn’t
You can’t have a romcom without the comedy – and The Drama goes another level, described as a romantic black comedy that wades into some pretty dark places. And I think that only lends itself to the genre, because the reality is that romantic relationships can show shades of light and dark, and the complications that come with falling in love.
Emma and Charlie have a dinner party with their friends, married couple Rachel and Mike, and the conversation turns to the worst thing they’ve ever done.
This is the turning point for Emma and Charlie, who are a matter of days away from tying the knot. What transcends is an uncomfortable conversation between friends that left me and the rest of the cinema nervously laughing our way through, weighing up our own moral compass and where we stood on if you could ever come back from each confession (and most of us agreed Rachel’s was actually the worst!).
It was a similar story in A24’s romantic comedy last year, Materialists, which shows how modern dating has become pent up on hitting certain thresholds in salary, height, body count, and so on, with Pedro Pascal’s character even having cosmetic surgery to make him taller.
The Drama offers the perfect post-cinema debrief
If you didn’t go and watch The Drama with your mates, you’re doing it wrong. Yes, I’m all for a solo cinema trip, but The Drama is one that begs to be discussed. As the credits roll, I was left stunned and in need of time to process what I’d just watched, and then immediately find out what everyone else thought.
We went for pizza and dived into all our thoughts and feelings. Inevitably, it was then a rite of passage scrolling though Letterboxd reviews to see everyone else’s hot takes.
In The Drama’s case, it asks the question of if you can ever really fully know a person
The world is increasingly complicated. Amongst the aforementioned list of non-negotiables that include height, salary, interests, and so on, more and more when dating you also want someone that aligns with your beliefs. I know that’s the case for me, anyway. It can be daunting, then, to consider whether you’re asking for too much, your standards too high.
The Drama goes some way to address these anxieties, asking if we can ever really know a person fully, if we need to know every mistake or dark thought they’ve ever had, or if it’s okay to take them for who they are now and not who they once were.
The Drama makes for uncomfortable viewing, but that isn’t a bad thing
Reflecting on watching The Drama, I definitely found it to be an uncomfortable watch. It asks you to interrogate where your own boundaries lie, and what you’re prepared to look past in the name of love.
Reading up about The Drama post-watch – because of course I had to dissect every junket and interview – I love what director Kristoffer Borgli had to say about his intentions with the film.
“This is a very personal story. It doesn’t look at the societal level of deciding where your lines are, where the line for unconditional love is,” he said on the Popcorn Podcast. “The movie’s exploring more your personal limit and more the limits of how honest and how flawed you can be in your most private life. Publicly is a very different sort of discussion. It’s one that’s too big for me.”
Wade in on The Drama and book your tickets to watch it at Cineworld now.
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