They sold you a wedding. What you're getting is something else entirely. A24's "The Drama" opens this week with Zendaya and Robert Pattinson as a couple days away from their wedding — and it's been marketed like a stylish, slightly quirky romantic comedy. Fake save-the-dates mailed to influencers. Wedding announcements in real newspapers. A campaign so committed to the rom-com bit that people who hadn't followed it closely genuinely thought they were going to see a love story.
They are not going to see a love story. The twist has already leaked — it was probably always going to — and it's dark enough that calling this film a "rom-com" feels like calling a car crash a "parking incident." Director Kristoffer Borgli, whose previous film "Dream Scenario" turned Nicolas Cage into the internet's nightmare fuel of the year, is clearly not interested in making something comfortable. The question is whether the subversion works or whether it's another case of arthouse misdirection that leaves audiences feeling manipulated rather than moved.
The early critical response has been divided in the way that only genuinely polarizing films get divided — not tepid mixed reviews, but actual factions. Half the reviews call it a masterclass in tonal control. The other half call it a betrayal of the audience that's dressed up as cleverness. Both camps make coherent points, which usually means the movie is doing something interesting.
Pattinson's career choices continue to be a marvel of deliberate chaos. From the tail end of Twilight to "Good Time" to "The Lighthouse" to "Batman" to this — there's a consistent logic to his unpredictability. He seems constitutionally uninterested in the safe play. Zendaya, coming off "Dune" and "Challengers," has earned enough goodwill to take swings like this, and by all accounts she does.
Whether you should see it probably depends on your tolerance for being messed with by people who are very good at it. April is usually the dead zone between Oscar hangover and summer spectacle. A genuinely provocative film opening right now is either going to get buried or become a word-of-mouth phenomenon. Given A24's track record at manufacturing conversation, bet on the latter.
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie also opened April 1st, which tells you everything about the range of what theaters are offering right now. Go see Bowser in space or get psychologically unsettled by Zendaya. Both, frankly, seem like reasonable Thursday options.