Kristoffer Borgli has quickly become one of the great conceivers of hooks for films. A single-sentence elevator pitch for each of his releases is enough to generate buzz and attract high-profile talent, from everyone in the world seeing Nicholas Cage’s character in their dreams on the same night in Borgli’s delirious Dream Scenario, to his latest Zendaya and Robert Pattinson-led The Drama, about a seemingly perfect couple’s life being uprooted mere days before their wedding because of an innocent enough game of “What’s the Worst Thing You’ve Ever Done?” where Zendaya‘s character Emma reveals something deep and disturbing, far beyond what her fiance Charlie (Pattinson) and their shared friends were expecting.
The movie hinges on its twist, one that was rather successfully kept under wraps during the marketing run and even after a week of audiences getting their hands on it. I was able to avoid the major plot details before finally seeing it, despite the controversy surrounding its subject matter. That’s hard not to explore in a review, so consider this your spoiler warning before reading further. Because what Emma reveals is ultimately what consumes the movie after its first thirty minutes, sending The Drama into territory that explores societal shaming, cancel culture, and how we pick and choose which unspoken social rules apply to some people and not to others.
Emma reveals that, as a teenager, she planned a school shooting. And not in the early stages, not a moment of disgruntled seething at the world around her. She came to the very edge, bringing a weapon to school and nearly carrying out the attack until a different mass shooting happened the same day, only earlier. She ditches the plan, and spends the rest of her adolescence advocating for stricter gun laws as a way to self-repent for what she nearly did.
Back in the present, Charlie and their friends Rachel (Alana Haim) and Mike (Mamoudou Athie) are startled, alarmed to say the least. Emma is accosted by Rachel, and from there both Emma and Charlie are left to interpret and investigate how to process this. It was a long time ago. Emma was a troubled teen. She didn’t end up carrying it out. She spent years working toward better gun control afterward, and she seems to have built a rather normal life for herself and Charlie. But coming that close to carrying out a mass shooting… is that something you can just forgive and forget?
The moral dilemma is a great hook, and Kristoffer Borgli fills the runtime with enough new angles and ideas to keep you engaged. It’s hard to maintain the rom-com genre framing given the material’s weightiness, but Borgli has always reveled in the uncomfortable and the surreal. Pattinson is a great cipher for the squirmy, buffoonish male companion with little sense of how to process stress or keep a secret. His unraveling takes center stage as someone being told from every direction how to feel and react to Emma’s secret, until he just combusts in one of the great (and awful) wedding speeches ever put to screen. He’s truly great in this movie, and for my money it’s probably his best performance.
Zendaya is a bit more passive once the worst thing Emma has ever done is on the table. She’s great in what she’s given, but the way Borgli splices the story in the edit, cutting between past and present and intermittently between Emma and Charlie, one storyline is inevitably going to feel like the A-plot while the other takes the back seat. Emma ends up in the latter position through much of the second act.
And it’s difficult not to feel at times like Borgli is almost overediting this. Crosscutting at a quick and erratic pace, an abundance of outside noise layered on top of each other, manufacturing anxiety at a relentless clip. The film rarely sits still. It’s effective, but I found myself more drawn to the moments when he lets the camera settle for a second and the two leads really get to shine. I was worried about how Borgli would wrap it all up, but the final set piece in the diner lands well and gives the film a surprisingly sweet sendoff.
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It’s a movie that only kinda works to various degrees, but I admire the massive swing from everyone involved. It wanders in the second act for a bit too long, and Pattinson’s slow downward spiral is not nearly as meaty as the moral dilemma presented in the first act, or as satisfying as the absurd, slapstick finale. But The Drama is a worthy entry into the “idyllic household turned upside down by twisted desire or past revelations” genre, sitting comfortably alongside A History of Violence and Gone Girl. Kristoffer Borgli is building a filmography worth paying close attention to, even when the pieces don’t fully come together.
Score: 7/10
The Drama (2026)
- Cast: Zendaya, Robert Pattinson, Alana Haim, Mamoudou Athie, Hailey Benton Gates, Jordyn Curet, Zoë Winters
- Director: Kristoffer Borgli
- Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
- Runtime: 105 minutes
- Rated: NR
- Release Date: April 3, 2026
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