Today’s film asks if you can ever find yourself empathizing with somebody who brought an assault rifle to school with the purpose of gunning down peers. And it’s a comedy. And a romance. Because of course it is. What says romance more than: “Once upon a time, my fiancé planned to kill dozens of teenagers in one go?” HA! What a lark! Remember what stupid shit we got up to as kids? That time my parents caught me smoking … that time we all went skinny dipping at Lake Anza … and that time I came thisclose to shooting all of my peers in cold blood.
*sigh* Good times.
I didn’t like the meet-cute here, and I’d like to say that threw me for the rest of the film, but, no, the film threw me for the rest of the film. And it’s supposed to; The Drama asks questions you don’t want answered. Is it good that it asks them among strangers in a comfortable environment? There are worse choices. But let’s get back to that opening where Charlie (Robert Pattinson) spots Emma (Zendaya) reading by herself in a bookstore café. He waits for her to claim her order, then sneaks over, captures the title of her book on film and quickly googles it so he has an opening by pretending he read the book.
This is a dick move. If you are willing to interrupt a reading person, which -all else being equal- is also a dick move, a better opening is, “Hey, that looks interesting; what’s it about?” or something along those lines. At that point, you’ve made your play without any lie behind your actions. Well, the joke is on Charlie; Emma is deaf in the ear he chooses to proposition.
Months later, they are engaged and a week from their wedding. It’s exciting, no? And while sampling the catered meal for the event, the best man decides to play a game of: “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?”
This is a bad game. Oh, you’ll learn plenty about your person, but it’s still a game where you learn things you don’t really want to know, even if they are, “God, my betrothed is so wimpy!” It is also a game that assumes you are all good people who have weaknesses, not bad people who are trying to pass as good. Hence, the table shares tales of using a human shield from a dog attack, locking a kid in a closet and walking away, and extreme cyberbullying, none are which are cool things to do. That’s the point. They’re dick moves, but understandable dick moves. These are good people with moments of weakness.
When pushed for her turn, Emma offers that the 15-year-old version of herself brought an automatic rifle to school with the intention of killing scores of her classmates.
Oh yeah. This just got real.
The film takes us back to the life of 15-year-old alienated, misunderstood, curmudgeonly Emma (Jordyn Curet). This is the most effective part of the film, and I kinda wish The Drama had been entirely about the struggles and reformation of teen 
Emma. But it wasn’t. The film instantly became, “What the Hell does Charlie -who is clearly unnerved by this and sees Emma as a complete stranger- do now?” And -apparently- nobody has an answer to that, except me. And my answer is: You have to either postpone or call off that wedding entirely. You have to. This is not “cold feet” or “pre-wedding jitters.” This is questioning who your partner is. This is questioning your entire future.
But the film doesn’t do this, and I will leave it at that.
The Drama is a made for a curiously narrow scope of audience, right? I’m not imagining this, am I? I assume as a movie producer, you don’t want to turn an audience off, right? I mean “shoot up a school” is neither funny, nor entertaining. And the film knows it; this is the film’s entire premise. But writer/director Kristoffer Borgli also risks alienating an entire audience by making his “shooter” the subject of empathy. Hence, there’s a very fine line drawn, audience-wise, between people horrified by school shootings and yet remain people who have the ability to sympathize with the potential shooter. Do you have any idea how narrow that scope is? I can only guess.
I certainly appreciated the boldness of The Drama to bring up such questions in the context of partners and relationships. I always thought you have to agree on three things before you get married: politics, children, religion. All the rest is negotiable. Is “school shooting” a potential fourth? Gosh, I hope not. As I say, I appreciate the questions the film raised, but I didn’t like the direction it took them. I’m giving this a recommendation as a decent piece of art, but it kinda turned my stomach at the same time.
There once was a young woman, Emma
Who had quite the modern dilemma
Disclose her past
And watch her wedding re-cast?
Or stay mum and eschew the mayhem-ma?
Rated R, 105 Minutes
Director: Kristoffer Borgli
Writer: Kristoffer Borgli
Genre: I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess … “drama”
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: People horrified by school shottings yet could see themselves empathizing with the shooter.
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: “I would call off that wedding in a heartbeat.”
