THE DRAMA 😊

PREMISE

A happily engaged couple is put to the test when an unexpected turn sends their wedding week off the rails.

THE GOOD STUFF

PATTINSON & ZENDAYA– These two give world-class performances here. To go from the typical romantic-comedy stuff displayed in the first 20 minutes of this thing to the escalating heaviness of the rest of the story is just real professional movie-star stuff. They have many scenes together in which the characters say one thing to each other but give physical signals of genuine discomfort, disappointment, disillusionment, longing, and rage. There’s a lot of screaming and yelling, but the magic of these two performances is what’s going on underneath. These are two characters who become increasingly mentally exhausted as the film continues. It is in the last 20 minutes of the film that you truly see them speaking without talking. Really impressive stuff.

ALANA HAIM– Equally impressive is the performance of Alana Haim as one of the more unlikable movie characters in all of 2026 so far. Her performance is mostly shot in close-up, with her sitting still. It’s all the more impressive that she’s basically playing the physical manifestation of passive-aggressiveness, and one of the worst on-screen movie BFF’s that I can remember. She has a speech towards the end of this movie that is just…..

THE BAD STUFF

THESE CUTAWAYS– Sometimes there will be a character in this movie who is talking for more than 10 seconds, and then, as they continue talking, there will be a cutaway to a moving image further emphasizing what the character is talking about in the scene. Sometimes, in one monologue, there might be two or three of these cutaways, and of those two or three cutaways, one or two of them might be completely unnecessary and done for the sake of style over substance.

Whenever a character has a high-stakes emotional moment, we’re getting cutaways. For transitioning in between scenes, we’re getting cutaways. I think you get the point. The ratio of the cutaways that work as opposed to the ones where you’re wondering why they’re there at all is about 55/45 in favor of the ones that shouldn’t be there. When the scene is staying still WITH NO CUTAWAYS, the best moments of the movie come out. I’m hard-pressed to believe that a test screening audience wouldn’t point this out, but what do I know?

PATTINSON’S ACCENT– In all the movies where I’ve seen Robert Pattinson play an american, (or someone who is NOT BRITISH) I’ve never seen the accent slip up as much as in this movie. He does have an American accent that works for a while, then it goes into Mickey 17 narrator territory, and then, in the last scene of the film, it just sounds like there are flat-out British inflections on certain words. It’s just that the last scene is so good that he kind of deserves a pass. This might be something that just bothers me.

THE UGLY STUFF

THE ABSENCE OF RATIONALITY– Not too long ago, I saw a movie called SPEAK no evil with James McAvoy. In my review of that movie, I recall saying that I’d never seen a group of characters make wildly terrible decisions on purpose to advance the plot, without any sense of realism behind them. That is, until now. Wildly terrible decisions entirely drive the plot of this movie.

There are about four or five times in this movie when, if a character simply doesn’t do the stupid, reckless thing or say an incredibly hurtful thing at the worst time, the whole story changes drastically. Given the situations that this movie presents, this would never ever happen in real life. Not to say that these kinds of movies need to be 100% true to life or anything like that, but there are levels of stupidity that forbid you from your suspension of disbelief.

*************

Ultimately, this is a movie I respect more than I like. There’s nothing really flashy about this as far as its aesthetic, or the dialogue, or even the music. A lot of stuff is basically done just so that the actors can do their thing. All the complaints that should be lodged towards this movie goes towards the story and characters and not the performances. Director Kristoffer Borgli seems to be a student of the Guadagnino / Almodovar School of melodrama, and that’s actually a good thing.

This works as a film that starts plenty of conversations after the movie is over. You should probably see this with a group of people or at least your spouse. Hopefully, you guys are in good standing when you do. Otherwise, this movie might inadvertently trigger things you don’t want brought up. 

THE DRAMA is in theaters now