The Drama Review

The Drama Review 

The latest film with Zendaya and Robert Pattinson, The Drama drops in theaters. A wild, crazy, and trippy story about this engaged couple on the verge of divorce just a week before their wedding. This is a film that’s best to go into knowing as little as possible because your viewing would be much better and more surprising. What did I think about the movie? Let’s talk about it!

The Good

This is the type of movie that’s very hard to talk about without spoiling anything about the film. I’m going to do my best here because the less you know going in, the better. The fact that this movie is so hard to talk about without spoiling anything is exactly what makes this movie work so well. The film has the initial reveal about one of the characters and from there a series of other reveals happen that change your perspective on certain characters and wondering where certain things are going to go. Even what makes the movie so compelling is hard to talk about because you don’t want to spoil the experience for others. The film was marketed as this romantic dramedy with Zendaya and Robert Pattinson. On the surface, that's not a bad way to describe this film. The film does have romance, drama, and comedy in it but the film is so much more than that. It has a little bit of a Safdie Brothers flavor to it, especially Marty Supreme with the anxiety building up and this non-stop stress ride that doesn’t let you go from start to finish. The perfect way to describe this movie is as a romantic thrill ride dramedy. If that movie sounds interesting to you, then you’re going to love this movie. 

Another thing that works really well about this movie is that the film asks a lot of question but doesn’t provide a lot of answers. This could be an aspect that I think will polarize people and could turn people away completely, for me I appreciate that it left room for a lot of conversations to be had. That’s one of the things that Zendaya and Robert Pattinson discussed during the press tour for the film was that they hoped it would lead to conversations and I think this movie absolutely will. The film has the initial setup and reveals what will cause one discussion but each of the characters’ perspectives on that will also start conversations about who is right, who is wrong. Is there a bad guy, or is there not a bad guy? Even the film’s ending is ambiguous and I’ve even had some reviewers criticize the ending because it sort of goes for it and gets a bit too goofy compared to the rest of the film’s tone. I didn’t have an issue with it, I thought the film as a whole had kept the tone in check. So much of the questions go back to the moral dilemma that the characters are facing. People could side with Zendaya’s character or they could with Pattinson’s character and with a strong argument, they’re not wrong in their thinking process. That’s when you have a cool movie that’s a great conversation piece that will provide many different perspectives and thoughts on what happened. 

With this movie you have to talk about our two lead performances from Zendaya and Robert Pattinson. Both of them are some of the most exciting actors working today and picking very interesting projects whether it’s big blockbusters or smaller films like this. No matter what they do, they’re always strong performers. Both of them are giving great performances here and they’re performances are very different. Zendaya’s performance could be perceived as one note and dry, but that’s the character. The character is very layered and complex but doesn’t have a big personality to her and so I think Zendaya is able to portray that very well. This might be my favorite Robert Pattinson performance. I haven’t seen a lot of the smaller dramas he did in the 2010s like Good Time or The Lighthouse. Of the movies I’ve seen, The Drama is easily his best performance. He’s the one giving the more complex and layered performance. He’s this character that’s stuck in a situation that he’s not sure what to do. His character has to be dramatic while also being scared while also being shy and nervous. It’s a character that requires a great actor like Pattinson to really shine through and deliver something great. Especially in the third act is really where Pattinson gets to shine. There’s a speech scene in the third followed up by a scene of him crying and those scenes back to back made me think that he's one of the best actors working today. Given this film is coming out earlier in the year, I don’t know how much awards consideration they’re great but both of them are deserving of nominations. 

It’s not just Zendaya and Robert Pattinson that are great, everybody in the ensemble is doing really good work and shines in their roles. What’s fun about the ensemble in the film is that everybody is providing a different outlook on what’s going on and the whole situation. The one that people have already been talking about since the film’s release is Alana Haim who is Zendaya’s maid of honor. It’s tough to talk about her character without spoiling what makes her so compelling and pivotal to the story, but she gets a scene in the back half of the film that had my audience on edge as we didn’t know what she was going to do. There’s going to be a lot of debates on the internet about whether or not she’s the antagonist of the story. There’s strong arguments to be had about whether she is or isn’t. That’s what I love about her and her character is that she’s a bit unpredictable as to what she’s going to do next. But all of the supporting characters are fun and interesting and have something about them that pops. Some of these characters have smaller roles like the wedding photographer ot the DJ that don’t do much but they have so much personality that they stick with you. There’s a couple of different DJs in the film and the second one has like a minute of screentime but due to what he’s saying and even how he dresses, it’s an image that sticks with you. 

Finally, the film has a lot of creativity when it comes to the direction. The film is directed by Kristoffer Borgli who previously directed Dream Scenario with Nicolas Cage a few years back. I haven’t seen that film but from the images and clips I have seen, it'’s very creative and weird. He’s able to bring this unique and fresh directing style to this movie. There’s a number of creative decisions in the film that make the film feel unique. There’s two examples of this in the film. The first one ties into the opening credits sequence that is just showcasing our two leads dancing but the way that the text and the names come onto the screen is unique and different. There’s a sequence in the middle of the film that’s this montage involving Robert Pattinson that visualizes so much about the struggle that he’s going through. It’s a great example of visual storytelling that’s able to show the audience what he’s feeling without having to say a single word. Borgli I think is on track to be one of the more interesting directors of the 2020s and bringing this fresh style to Hollywood that can have a lot of generic filmmaking going on. 

The Bad

So, I really dug this movie so there’s not much in here that didn’t work for me and holds the movie back. The first thing that comes to mind is Mamoudou Athie’s character feels a little bit underdeveloped and the least interesting. What makes his characters interesting is that he’s the most normal character here. He’s providing the voice of reason and trying to calm the characters down in the film. His role in he film is important, Athie isn’t doing a bad job, but all of the other characters I felt were more fleshed out and had more to do. Athie doesn’t really have a scene or a moment that I felt popped like all of the characters in the film did. It’s not that the character or the performance is inherently bad but I just didn’t find him as interesting as the other characters in the film. 

Also, as you move into the third act and we get to the wedding the film felt a bit rushed. There were a few moments that I wished the film paused to let the audience sink and marinate in the moment a bit. The film is only 1 hour and 45 minutes long, so if the film added 2-5 minutes it would still be under 2 hours long. The film was building to some pivotal moments involving certain characters that I wanted to see their reactions to certain things happening. The big example of this would be with a boyfriend character that appears at the wedding. I don’t wanna spoil the boyfriend’s role in the film or anything like that, but there’s something that happens earlier in the film that causes a big reaction and the collision in the third act happens so sudden that I wanted more time to let it soak in what happened. 

Final Thoughts: Overall, I really dug The Drama. This is a film that I know is going to be very polarizing and cause a lot of debates online about the morally right and wrong of the film. I like it when movies like this are able to act as conversation starters about the film’s topics and ideas. Zendaya and Robert Pattinson continue to establish themselves as some of the best actors of their generation, two of the best performances so far in 2026. I want people to go out and support this film because it’s wild and I want Hollywood to make more ambitious and quirky movies like this. 

The Score: 8.7/10 (B+)