Let's Talk About The Drama
a spoiler free review + weekend reads, sourdough bread, and interior news
Welcome to hyperfixed - a low-stakes publication where I share everything and anything I’m excited about, with anyone who will listen. As we patiently wait for New York to make up its mind on what season it wants to be in, I am softly willing spring into existence with outings in Central Park, Summer School Radio on repeat, and mornings at New York Pilates - other city happenings include seeing Jason Robert Brown’s The Last Five Years at Radio City Hall, visiting the listening room at Cooper Hewitt, and delighting in Gem’s homey breakfast plate. Without further ado, here’s new hyperfixed.
The Drama 🎬
I was fortunate to experience The Drama, the latest A24 title on everyone’s lips, relatively spoiler-free - having not seen any trailers, my interest in the film was purely driven by the Zendaya and Rob of it all, and the promise of a premise so shocking that it had to be seen to be believed. The Drama follows soon-to-be married couple Emma and Charlie, who in the days leading up to their wedding confess to each other the worst thing they’ve ever done, with one admission putting their ceremony at risk.
The Drama reads like a teleplay, its tensely drawn ninety-minute runtime wasting no time in setting the scene, revealing just enough information at any given moment to keep its audience satiated without ever knowing what could possibly happen next. At times, The Drama gets caught up in some of its narrative choices, more concerned with the abstract of their ideas than their real life believability - why, for example, Emma’s father would ever bring up the drama in his wedding speech, why anyone would be friends with someone as cruel and self-righteous as Alana Haim’s character, and why even her own husband (!) wouldn’t call her out on her inexcusable behavior - it’s the exact kind of rage-bait that The Drama is designed to entertain, and it succeeds at it entirely. While the film earns some unrestrained laughter as it landslides into a nervous comedy of errors, reaching an Uncut Gems-like flow state in its final act, the film’s actual premise couldn’t be more tonally opposite.
While The Drama does not condone any of the violence it discusses, it does aim to examine the disconnect between the United States and the rest of the world when it comes to the desensitization of tragedy and the reluctant confrontation of its aftermath - it’s not lost on me that the director and writer of this film is European, and therefore comfortably distant from the mass tragedy that he’s adapted to his liking for shock value. In her must-read critique of the film, fellow writer Brooke Obie aptly diagnoses Emma as a lesser character in Charlie’s white male fantasy. As Charlie grasps at academic theories and analyses as a means to access and relate to Emma’s experience, what stands as an ethical dilemma for Charlie to self-examine, is a traumatic reality that Emma hasn't known life without.
The one moment in The Drama that I can’t get out of my head is the series of flashbacks to Emma’s adolescence, as she reveals how ‘the worst thing she ever did’ really went, or rather didn’t go, down. An intimate interlude amidst the film’s frantic energy, the theme of choosing to start over is reflected not just in Emma and Charlie’s relationship, but in younger Emma as well, the past version of herself as distant to the audience as she is to her self now. I was pleasantly surprised by how easy it was to root for Emma and Charlie’s relationship, largely in part to Zendaya and Robert Pattinson’s brilliant performances - both are a genuine pleasure to watch and deliver some of their career bests. As Emma and Charlie choose to love one another in spite of their past and present wrongdoings, their acceptance of each other’s flaws is precisely what makes The Drama work. After all, there is nothing more romantic than surrendering to your feelings at a diner :’) In theaters.
Recent Reads 📖 ✨
+ signing off with a few of my recent reads, for your hyperfixation consideration. hooray for print media!
Algorithm Of The Night: Film Writing 2019 - 2025, A. S. Hamrah
‘Robert Pattinson and Zendaya Enter the Unknown,’ Interview
Post-Traumatic, Chantal V. Johnson
Perfection, Vincenzo Latronico
‘Everybody’s Thirsty For Hudson Williams,’ Wonderland
Love your take on this. I have been pondering on whether I want to go see it as I've read mixed reviews 💛💛