We Listen and We Don’t Judge in “The Drama”
Illustration by Molly Hunter
Before its release, The Drama, directed by Kristoffer Borgli, was intentionally marketed as a romantic comedy by having social media campaigns that reflected traditional wedding invites and a pop-up wedding chapel in Las Vegas. The release of the trailer revealed that there would be a jaw-dropping confession that changes everything. The confession, genre, and plot wouldn’t be known until you watch the film, making a first viewing in a crowded theater an unforgettable experience.
Spoiler Warning: The following article contains major spoilers for The Drama
The Drama opens like a typical romantic comedy, introducing Charlie and Emma by showing how they first meet at a coffee shop. The awkward, yet charming first interaction is followed by a quick glance at their early relationship, which establishes their instant chemistry. This early sense of a perfect relationship carries into the wedding preparations, continuing the film’s initial image of an uncomplicated romance.
While they are at the final menu tasting for Emma and Charlie’s wedding, Emma’s maid of honor, Rachel, suggests they all share the worst thing they have ever done because Rachel and Mike did the same exercise before their wedding. Mike starts by admitting he used an ex-girlfriend as a human shield to protect himself from a dog. Next, Rachel confesses she locked a child with disabilities in an abandoned RV in the middle of the woods, and even ran away when he started screaming. Charlie reveals he cyberbullied someone to the point they had to move away. After finishing her glass of wine, Emma confesses that she had planned a school shooting, going as far as bringing her dad’s rifle to school, but did not end up going through with it. This was the moment when I started questioning what side I was on. The whole theater gasped and fell silent.
What begins as a seemingly harmless activity quickly turns into an intense chain of events. Each character frames their confession as a mistake made in their youth, allowing them to share it without immediate consequence. However, the reaction to Emma’s confession turns this moment into something far more serious and not something that can just be laughed off. It becomes difficult to distinguish between actions that can be dismissed as youthful mistakes and those that reveal something more deeply troubling about the character. By having all of these confessions back to back, it forces the characters and the audience to confront the limits of what can be justified.
In my personal opinion, I think Rachel’s confession is equally as bad as Emma’s. Rachel could have killed that boy if it weren’t for the search party finding him in time. On the other hand, Emma never went through with the shooting after learning that another shooting happened that day and saw the impact it had on people when they discovered a classmate died. Rachel was able to clearly justify her actions, explaining them through frustration and indifference, which reveals a level of awareness without remorse. Emma does not justify her actions in the same way. She instead recognizes the gravity of what she almost did and ultimately decides not to go through with it. Emma also cannot fully explain her own motivation because it was something she did not yet understand or have control over. She was left unattended as a child, moved around a lot, severely bullied, and had no sense of community. Rachel is a full grown adult and is still incapable of perceiving her actions as harmful or bad, while Emma is able to have that understanding of her own actions.
Since another shooting happened the same day as Emma had planned to do hers, she realized the harm it would have actually done. In the following days, she threw the rifle into a river and became a vocal gun-control activist. This goes to show that she just needed a sense of community, which she had previously found in the gun aesthetic online. Rachel’s opinion on Emma is forever changed and it seems as if no argument will change her mind. Rachel from this point on begins to be the antagonist and a person you cannot stand to see on the screen because you know something bad is about to happen. Charlie also begins to have some questionable choices, but at the same time they are reasonable when you just found out your fiancée had planned a school shooting as a child. Charlie has such a hard time trying to figure out if he should go through with the wedding, and trying to make sense of who his partner actually is. Of course this man has to go and make this whole situation worse by cheating on Emma with his coworker. This creates a whole new problem and everything gets revealed at the wedding in a very extravagant manner. After everything falls apart, Emma and Charlie reunite at a diner and it reflects back to the beginning of the movie where Emma gives him the chance to reintroduce himself. I thought it was an amazing callback, but left me wondering if they were able to fully forgive each other.
If I had to give this film another title from a movie that already exists, even though no one asked, it would be One Battle After Another. This movie was a blast to watch in the theater, and I didn’t even cover everything that went on in it. It was one of those movies that you can dissect and analyze for hours on end. If you were in that room, which side would you have been on?