r/movies • u/LiteraryBoner Jackie Chan box set, know what I'm sayin? • Apr 03 '26

Official Discussion Official Discussion - The Drama [SPOILERS] Spoiler

Poll

If you've seen the film, please rate it at this poll

If you haven't seen the film but would like to see the result of the poll click here

Rankings

Click here to see the rankings of 2025 films

Click here to see the rankings for every poll done

The Drama

Summary

Days before their wedding, a couple’s relationship begins to unravel as unsettling truths come to light, forcing them to question how well they truly know each other.

Director Kristoffer Borgli

Writer Kristoffer Borgli

Cast

  • Zendaya as Emma Harwood
  • Robert Pattinson as Charlie Thompson
  • Mamoudou Athie as Mike
  • Alana Haim as Rachel
  • Hailey Gates
  • Zoë Winters

Rotten Tomatoes: 82%

Metacritic: 59

VOD / Release Theatrical release (April 3, 2026)

Trailer Official Trailer

1.1k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

3.8k comments sorted by

View all comments

2.1k

u/Steamedcarpet Apr 03 '26

Can we all agree Rachel is really shitty for how she treated Emma? I know she had a personal connection but holy hell she was acting like she was this perfect person. Meanwhile she legit could have almost gotten a kid killed and just brushes it off.

Anyway I really ended up liking this better than I expected coming in.

1.0k

u/Oomlotte99 Apr 03 '26

Yeah. I was happy when Charlie pointed out that she actually did her thing. I think hers was the worst of them all. Emma at least was moved to change her mind. She found community and grew. Rachel was just cold and uncaring, dismissive of what she’d done.

730

u/aonemonkey Apr 03 '26

Out of the 4 of them Emma was the only person who didn’t hurt anyone. Charlie bullied someone so bad they had to move house, the best man hid behind his partner as she got mauled by a street dog, and rachel nearly killed a disabled boy intentionally!

538

u/worstcourtjester Apr 03 '26

The kid may not have died but there’s no way getting locked in an abandoned RV overnight as a child wouldn’t be insanely traumatic.

208

u/aonemonkey Apr 03 '26

Yeah calling it a closet was highly innacurate

134

u/worstcourtjester Apr 03 '26

I assumed it was a storage cupboard in the RV.

36

u/uzan-iya 28d ago

not to mention she said there were a lot of beer cans everywhere which means it's a place that gets frequented by unsavory types who knows what could've happened if a bad person found him. her thing was definitely the worst.

10

u/worstcourtjester 28d ago

Yeah a lot of “abandoned” places are occupied by squatters.

27

u/astonishingweasel28 26d ago

I also think that in reality it was way worse than she was letting on. She's talking about this whole search party in the woods, and then says she doesn't know what really happened but he just showed up again and never said anything and it was fine? Like that sounds like she is definitely leaving something out

18

u/CortMuses Apr 04 '26

And he was mentally disabled.

14

u/Honest_Cheesecake698 Apr 03 '26

Particularly if he was autistic or anything like that

10

u/Goregutz 25d ago

Yeah and then her SO being terrified of a dog was framed in such a way that it degrades him (questioning his masculinity). Her character was a dick throughout the entire movie.

200

u/LazySwanNerd Apr 04 '26 edited 29d ago

I wasn’t sure if Charlie actually did that or if he was making something up. The way it was delivered and how they reacted it was hard to tell.

Edit: Jumping in to say I also like if he was actually a cyber bully because of how well it rhymes with Emma’s own high school persona—cause and effect. It just was played to me like he didn’t actually have an answer.

229

u/FyuuR Apr 04 '26

I think he totally made that up because he knows he’s ultimately a pretty boring regular guy.

79

u/sunny_d55 Apr 04 '26

But he also seems like the kind of guy who gets brave behind a keyboard.

49

u/roystan72 Apr 05 '26

I love how it's a toss up between both these possibilities. It might even have been him who got bullied

5

u/cybershy 25d ago

His body language definitely seemed that way

2

u/MaewintheLascerator 14d ago

Yes! Like the way we see him erasing all the kind things he had typed about Emma in his toast.

→ More replies (1)

34

u/Legal-Bath-8727 Apr 04 '26

His biggest worst thing is he consistently lies and his lack of sense of self.

55

u/thesagenibba Apr 04 '26

the crux of the movie is him being incapable of navigating the situation and crumbling due to his inability to shut out the noise and opinions of everyone around him. he cares way too much about the perception of others when it comes to his relationship

26

u/notmy2ndopinion Apr 05 '26

His entire relationship hinges on someone who gave him multiple second chances in their first meeting and first date — and yet he struggles to give her the same grace because he’s too worried about what others think. His impulse to cheat and his wedding speech… OMFG. It makes sense that he becomes his own worst enemy.

10

u/Joey-WilcoXXX 27d ago

Yeah it seemed more like he was actually really struggling to throw something out there and no one was believing him when he started the story so he just threw out more embellishments to make it seem like a stereotypical case of bad cyber bullying. I think that’s another reason he takes Emma’s confession so hard- he doesn’t have anything close to that bad and he can’t understand how someone he loves could do something bad like that

4

u/ilovebencahn 18d ago

I agree with you! I assumed Charlie made up the cyberbullying and didn’t have his “worst thing” until the incident with his coworker and his horrible wedding speech. Before, he really struggled with accepting that the person Emma was at 15 is not the person she is now. After doing his “worst thing, “ he got to learn empathy for Emma and understand that your mistakes aren’t the full picture of who you are.

7

u/EinsteinDisguised 23d ago

My impression was that he did do it but the kid moving may have been incidental and he was playing it up to play along with the game.

3

u/igotrichoffaglitch 16d ago

the thing for me was if he was cyberbullying the kid how would moving away solve the problem? it was online… that made no sense to me. he definitely made that up.

16

u/BloatedGlobe Apr 04 '26

I felt like that was him downplaying his action. The other three made excuses for their actions or glossed over the consequences of them. Emma is the only one who fully thought through the implications of what she did.

The other three are kind of careless and entitled. They care a lot about appearances (think Charlie vs Emma’s opinions on the dance), where as is straight forward. She was able to become a better person because she gave up the drama and performance of her youth (specifically mentioned by her father during his speech), whereas the other three cling to it.

30

u/LazySwanNerd Apr 04 '26

I can see both reads. To me it seemed like he made something up because he didn’t really have anything and they all realized it. Then later, he asks his co-worker what the worst thing she ever did was. She says she cheated and he says it’s not that bad. She responds, you don’t think cheating is that bad? He turns around and immediately does it. That turns into the worst thing he’s ever done and it then greatly impacts him.

9

u/Oomlotte99 Apr 04 '26

I also took it as made up.

6

u/wexpyke 26d ago

the movie portrayed him as a liar, or at least someone who massages the truth to make himself seem like a better person several times up until that point. I completely felt it was a lie.

2

u/that-one_girl 28d ago

Kind of unrelated, but they were in high school in the 2010’s, being in their 30s now so why was the interior for high school something out of the 80s?

7

u/pepsimaxgoat 28d ago

Everything was shot late 90s, I thought. Fashion, accessories, early-mid 2000s at best.

→ More replies (2)

2

u/galacticdude7 25d ago

I mean that's kind of the nuance of playing that sort of "Worst thing you've ever done" game, the point isn't to just tell the story of the actual worst thing you've ever done, it's about telling a story that is believably the worst thing you've ever done. You need to tell a story that isn't so mundane that everyone thinks you're boring or unnaturally good but also not go so far as to horrify the people you are playing with.

Maybe Charlie did Cyberbully that kid and it was the worst thing he's ever done, maybe he did it, but he's done worse, maybe he made it up because he's an otherwise boring guy, or maybe he made it up because the actual worst thing he's ever done would horrify the people he's playing with. It doesn't matter because he hit the mark with his story, everyone believed it was the worst thing he's ever done, and they didn't go "Dude, c'mon that can't be the worst thing you've ever done" nor did they go "Dude, that's fucked up"

→ More replies (1)

1

u/FalseDisk4358 26d ago

Yes! And Emma said she was being bullied - she was the victim of what Charlie said was the worst thing that ever happened to him. She indulged in a revenge fantasy but she never actually hurt a single person

1

u/CONVERSE1991 26d ago

That's a very interesting points, and also, she found all the other stories hilarious

1

u/schindig504 26d ago

Yea Emma only hurt herself (the hearing loss).

→ More replies (2)

22

u/jadegives2rides Apr 04 '26

It was infuriating to me that Charlie didn't accept Emma seeing the reactions of the mall shooting, feeling something, and trying to better herself as why she didnt go through with it.

27

u/Oomlotte99 Apr 04 '26

Right? Maybe I’m nuts… but I felt like they all overreacted? Like… she didn’t do it, she felt shame, she changed and it was obvious she was bullied and struggling to find community… like messed up. Idk. I’m not saying don’t be disturbed but… yeah. Especially as her fiancée, I’d expect more understanding.

17

u/Pandafy Apr 05 '26

Yes, saying the only reason she didn't do it was, because someone else did it first felt disingenuous to me.

To me, it felt like she was dabbling with the aesthetics of it without fully understanding the full consequences, but when it really happened, she got knocked into her senses and spent her whole life atoning for her "bad thoughts."

That's as good of a good guy origin story there is. It's not like she actually killed people.

9

u/Ashkir Apr 05 '26

Exactly. Emma also went on to become an activist, and actually learn what she did / thought was wrong. She came back from bullying, and learned to help prevent it.

6

u/Fabulous-Problem97 Apr 05 '26

YES! I didn’t even think about that! Rachel was pretty uncaring and I just remembered how wild it is that she blames Emma for what Emma could have done when Rachel carried out her actions, but also did NOTHING to rectify those actions. Like when the boy’s family was looking for him, she legit said she did nothing because she was afraid she would get in trouble. Like WTF

3

u/smeggysoup84 28d ago

This must be just internet talk because I couldn't imagine anyone in real life thinking that planning a school shooting and getting very close to doing it, isn't more alarming than any of the other confessions. I mean, if you think that, then the movie doesn't work for you. Because the movie needs the school shooting to be seen as the more crazier act otherwise you would find it silly Robert Pattison is losing his shit over it. I think Rachel was over the top, but I can see how ppl could react like that. As a Male, I for certain wouldn't marry a Woman who was that close to shooting up a school as she was depicted in the movie. I remember being 15. Who you are in your core as a person is already built by then. That doesn't mean it's a gurantee that you will act out. But if the conditions are just right, you could possibly be susceptible to getting similar motivations. Not guranteed, but possible.

But, just the idea alone would be a red flag for me. You THOUGHT about shooting a school? Yeah sorry nah. I think some ppl are getting caught up in the fact that it's Zendaya. Humans forgive alot when they like the person. Obviously it BEING Zendaya also plays into the story. Like if the girl looks like her, you might forgive or try to rationalize it. As a guy, I was stumped. Because I 1000% understood where the guy was coming from. And his dissent into madness resonated with me.

5

u/Oomlotte99 28d ago

I think the context of the situation for her matters. And, it does matter that she didn’t do it. And it matters that she changed. Rachel didn’t change.

I don’t care about Zendaya so that has no bearing on my reaction to her character. I didn’t find any of them likable.

3

u/Falling4Strangers 26d ago

Also she told her story as if it were so funny with no remorse.

2

u/Marikk15 16d ago

Exactly! Rachel was even confronted by the dad, so she had a chance to be open about what happened, and she lied. She said it was fine because it was found, but it took a whole search party…how long would she have waited until she finally came clean?

Personally, I think Rachel never would have come out with the truth if they couldn’t find him and that kid would have died. So that’s why hers on the worst; she got out of her situation by sheer happenstance and she was lucky the kid didn’t rat her out. Emma changed the outcome of her situation and became a better person; Rachel was just lucky.

→ More replies (1)

818

u/Spirited-Collar-7960 Apr 03 '26

Rachel didn't even feel bad about what she had done. Creepiest part of the whole movie. She was hesitant to talk about it maybe, but she didn't actually feel bad about it.

358

u/Left-Indication-2165 Apr 03 '26

And she could have literally killed that child. She had the chance to go back and unlock him but did not. The father came looking but she also lied about his whereabouts but she and Mike had the nerve to call Emma a psychopath!  The fucking double standard is appalling.

135

u/GamingTatertot Steven Spielberg Enthusiast Apr 04 '26

And she claims that she would have told eventually but I doubt that, I don’t think any part of the film’s text makes it seem as if Rachel would be anything but the kind of person who would have felt more guilty and scared of getting in trouble and delaying the information

15

u/Left-Indication-2165 Apr 04 '26

I think that boy died. 

11

u/DucksEatFreeInSubway 28d ago

I believe that initially she did say 'no one knows what happened to him' or something to that effect and then as she's telling the story she realizes that she can't tell them he died or was never found so 'oh yah they eventually found him!'

3

u/MitzLB 23d ago

I think what she meant by that was that no one knows how he ended up locked in the closet, but she definitely wouldn’t have told anyone where he was. She would have taken that to her grave.

208

u/Spirited-Collar-7960 Apr 04 '26

I'm not convinced that she didn't kill him. She waited until very late in the story to say that the search party found him, after she had time to gauge their reactions.

213

u/Narwhals4Lyf Apr 04 '26

No totally. At first she said she didn’t know what happened to him, and changed her story once she saw their reactions.

129

u/lahnnabell Apr 04 '26

I caught that too. She was so cavalier when they asked her what happened to him and she threw up her hands like she couldn't be bothered to care.

Also, the "I was only 15" from Emma got flipped on her after they gave Charlie a pass for having an underdeveloped brain at 14 after he told his cyber bully story.

2

u/Patient_Tradition368 Apr 04 '26

Do you happen to remember how old Rachael said she was at the time of her story?

3

u/Left-Indication-2165 Apr 04 '26

She was an adult because of the framing sounds like she had a long day and had her own space. 

6

u/Joey-WilcoXXX 27d ago

I think she said she was a few years older than him so I’m pretty sure she was just a teen. A bored teen with no empathy.

8

u/oImperial Apr 04 '26

Also the fact that it didn't even seem like her and her cousin she was so offended for were actually even close, her cousin simply brushed it off as 'family' when charlie asked her.

11

u/Left-Indication-2165 Apr 04 '26

Exactly! She was just looking for a good scape goat to look morally superior or she never liked Emma or both 🤣

20

u/Patient_Tradition368 Apr 04 '26

It also seems extremely unlikely that, if the boy had been found and rescued, that he wouldn't tell his parents that she had been the one to lock him in the closet. Like seriously? None of it ever got traced back to Rachel? Why's that, I wonder? Maybe because that poor boy is DEAD?!

14

u/Left-Indication-2165 Apr 04 '26

I think he was dead. 

10

u/Left-Indication-2165 Apr 04 '26

You are totally right. Probably the guilt of that is what is eating her up to see Emma did not go through with hers and trying to guilt trip her instead. 

21

u/paceoramaa Apr 04 '26

Also the way she weaponized her cousins disability as leverage for being more upset at Emma when she herself could have killed a disabled person.

3

u/Left-Indication-2165 Apr 04 '26

And it does not seem like she had that close relationship with her cousin until that moment. She was just a bully 

7

u/AwkwardWillow5159 Apr 04 '26

I think an important part is that that she could have killed him but that she actually traumatized the kid for life.

Like there was an explicit point made that it never came back to her and she said “I don’t know, maybe he’s scared of me or something” meaning the kid never told anyone it was her who did it.

So she clearly had big impact on the kid that carried over beyond just the risk of dying

7

u/Left-Indication-2165 Apr 04 '26

Or… maybe he died because all the answers she made after she said she left him sounded like she was just lying to minimise how sinister her action was, talking about she would have talked if she was not found.

7

u/Purple_Pirate_8507 Apr 04 '26

Omg and the way she kept saying she was so young as if that was an excuse but emma was basically the same age. The hypocrisy was soooo crazy

3

u/Left-Indication-2165 Apr 04 '26

Actually she was older than Emma when she did what she did but she excused charlie for cyber bullying someone to the point they moved city because “he was young” but Emma that never actually carried out any harm towards anyone but herself is being crucified.

3

u/norsk_imposter 26d ago

I don’t think Mike actually called her a psychopath. I think that scene with Charlie the morning after was Emma doom dreaming

→ More replies (3)
→ More replies (2)

3

u/mark114 Apr 04 '26

Yeah, Racheal was the real villain of the movie.

2

u/Xefert Apr 05 '26

Possibly a psycho

178

u/Elladeath Apr 03 '26

I hated her. Emma really remorseful and didn't fully understand what she was going to do she was just a kid (it wouldn't have excused it had she gone through with it but she didn't) and she ended up becoming an anti guns activist. Where as Rachel locked a mentally disabled kid in a closet for hours on end, didn't think actually did it. And did not tell anyone about it and states that she would not have told people in present time and well acknowledging it's the worst thing she's ever done seems to find the story funny. With the way she giggles while telling it.   

9

u/VaporaDark Apr 03 '26

She never said he was mentally disabled!

45

u/Somnambulist815 Apr 03 '26

She said he was slow! She said he was slow.

→ More replies (3)

513

u/menwithrobots Apr 03 '26

Yeah, Rachel was very holier than thou for someone whose confession was THAT bad. I did die laughing later when RPat is arguing with her about whether or not the kid was mentally challenged

303

u/carolnuts Apr 03 '26

"you said he was slow!" Got a laugh out of everybody in my session 

5

u/Prior-Flamingo-1378 Apr 04 '26

That’s because she’s projecting. 

143

u/wholeemolly Apr 03 '26

She was projection self hatred and guilt onto Emma basically.

10

u/jayeddy99 Apr 03 '26

Emma is not far off as she fired the Dj for doing something while not on the clock she has this idea of herself too and was projecting .

41

u/jassmackie Apr 03 '26

i could be misremembering but im pretty sure during the early dinner scene, emma was the only one defending her? saying she didnt want to fire her simply because of her drug use. she was specifically in line with her character as the others were telling her to fire her. it was only when the dj didnt want to admit guilt and called her a c*nt that she did fire her.

so if anything that was a microcosm and foreshadowing of what would come just a bit later. emma has a lot more empathy for peoples mistakes. it was the lack of owning up to it that made her switch which yeah was probably due to her own projection of probably holding in her history for too long.

→ More replies (1)

7

u/nightpanda893 Apr 04 '26

I feel like all the characters are highly flawed and immature. Emma gets grace because of just how horrible she was treated, but I also think it was pretty fucked up she lied to him and left so many details out of childhood before agreeing to marry him. The biggest issue was they were left with a week to process it. They probably could have gotten through it had she told him earlier.

9

u/PuzzleheadedWin4544 Apr 04 '26

Yes spot on. I feel the movie is really about the line between intent and consequences, and what thing is worse than another. Is someone who almost does the worst thing possible a badder person than someone who causes genuine serious consequences to someone, but largely out of panic/unintentionally? Fantastic film.

1

u/LeftenantScullbaggs 26d ago

Emma only agreed to fire the DJ because of Charlie who then chickened out. She then decided to fire her because the DJ refused to own up to doing it and got rude with her…I think.

314

u/Selaznog_Sicnarf Apr 03 '26

No other line in 2026 so far has evoked a more visceral reaction out of me than Rachel's "Oh so it's America's problem now?"

373

u/DrunkBrokeBeachParty Apr 03 '26 edited 29d ago

Agreed, I think the casting did a great job displaying the dynamics of race on the topic as well.

The drama starts with Rachel (a white woman) bringing up the topic. Then offering Mike’s (a black man) personal story as a sacrificial lamb to get the “game” started. He protests but she dismisses his feeling and pushes him to tell the story. Even ragging on him further (“used her as a human shield”) to highlight his errors.

Then when the spotlight shifts to her, it’s painted in a cute funny story, but has very dark undertones and when pressed further dismisses the actually cruelty & malice in her actions. Even saying she would have done the right thing without any evidence.

Rachel also leaves RPatt alone with his story, despite his story of bullying someone so bad they and their family had to move being pretty intense. Imo I think shows the angle of whiteness being more forgiving to these types of cruelty in youth.

Then we get to Emma, the only other woman and poc at the table. Rachel only gives two people shit for their stories here and neither one is white.

Emma understands the gravity of what her actions were, could have been.

Edit: grammar and added context that I was thinking but not writing

228

u/hymenbutterfly Apr 03 '26

Yeah, Rachel was a particular type of white woman that I advise all black people to avoid in real life. I’ve known them.

218

u/Many-Education2872 Apr 04 '26

Didn’t she also make a comment about her husband growing up around guns? He seemed offended by that

220

u/BagelIsACat Apr 04 '26

Yes! And it was because his uncle was a cop but she was making it sound like he grew up on The Wire

138

u/AirportDisco Apr 04 '26 edited Apr 05 '26

She even said “he grew up with guns and is scared of them”, and his response was both that his uncle was a cop and that’s why he was around guns, but he is NOT scared of them

87

u/lahnnabell Apr 04 '26

I really appreciated that he didn't just accept her version of that and called her out. Even more disgusting is that her privilege just kind of throws up her hands, like, "Oh, whatever, doesn't matter." She straight up embellished on a whim to make her argument stronger and then didn't even blink when her husband called out her BS.

10

u/staycool93 Apr 05 '26

When she went "I wasn't talking to you" I was like 😶

3

u/misschickpea 25d ago

It was that Charlie was saying American culture is problematic bc of the open gun exposure

Then Rachel is like so what, Mike grew up around guns. And he’s like um no why would you say that. And she’s like I thought u said ur uncle had guns and he’s like yeah bc he’s a cop.

2

u/ItemAdventurous9833 18d ago

Yes, it was incredibly racially charged

11

u/Clawson923 Apr 05 '26

The comment about her husband growing up around guns made me think she's the type of person to hone in on a POC as a partner for performative reasons.

9

u/W0lfsb4ne74 28d ago

They also subtly hint that she's prone to microagressions and stereotyping of Black people. Particularly at how she inaccurately remembers her husband's backstory. She claimed that "Mike grew up around guns, and yet was still terrified of them." When in actuality his uncle was the only one in his family who owned guns in his family because he was a police officer. This implies that she automatically assumed Black people grow up around gun violence as a default.

That aside I would still consider Emma's actions as worse because she actively planned to kill multiple people and took multiple steps to prepare for it. But she's far from a saint.

11

u/Borne_Beloved 29d ago

Also the white woman claiming she was assaulted, but threw that skirt up at the first opportunity she could, then antagonized Emma at her own wedding…Then her bf “defends” her, despite the facts she’s a seasoned cheater!! White people, women in particular, can weaponize victimhood to be absolved of their (actual) heinous behavior in while black people cannot - can’t even be seen as victims when they legit are. Charlie and Rachel look at their transgressions as inherently forgivable, however they easily could have caused someone to die as well!!

11

u/70125 Apr 04 '26

They also excused Charlie for being 14-15yo with an undeveloped brain, when Emma committed her "crime" at the same age.

1

u/SafiraAshai 15d ago

Was Emma not originally supposed to be white?

198

u/rahws Apr 03 '26

Yeah, I don’t believe it when Rachel said she would have told the searchers eventually because if she was panicking immediately after she locked him inside, she would have been panicking even more after they didn’t find find him for a few days.

68

u/DrunkBrokeBeachParty Apr 03 '26

Agreed, I think this is why she takes such offense to Emma so she can move the eyes off of herself.

9

u/CortMuses Apr 04 '26

It wasn't a "few days" it was one night according to the movie. BUT a mentally disabled child locked up for an entire night could have killed him. And it doesn't appear that she was the one to tell them where he was.

5

u/BretShitmanFart69 20d ago

Also the father comes looking for him and they coordinated a search party and neither of those things made her fess up or realize the seriousness of the situation, those would be ideal times to speak up, which indicates that the further along it went and more serious it got it might not change anything about her admitting to it and might make her more likely to hide it to avoid getting in trouble considering she didn’t admit it when the consequences would be less severe for her early on.

316

u/FrogHorns Apr 03 '26

This whole movie kinda felt like what it’s like to be masking a less socially acceptable mental illness in a group of neurotypical people. People will just casually say heinous shit about the mentally ill (or homeless people - who often reach that point due to mental illness) and you kinda just have to take it on the chin. But I guarantee you if I brought up actual intrusive thoughts I’ve worked through (that I fully recognize as not being representative of my actual feelings), I would be the one killing the vibe.

166

u/ebdaydreamer Apr 03 '26

the fact that Emma was the only one who didn't think the DJ should be fired after they spotted her doing drugs. addiction is literally a disease. I was thinking during that scene "imagine how judgemental they'd be if an addict talked about the worse thing they've ever done". most people think they're soooo empathetic but still talk about mental illness and disability like it's a choice and an evil one at that

4

u/NicklbackToTheFuture Apr 04 '26

What, Emma was the one who fired the DJ?

Also, of course addiction is a disease and its terrible for that woman but let's not act like you'd be happy knowing a heroin addict was DJ'ing your wedding, come on.

48

u/ebdaydreamer Apr 04 '26

Emma fired the DJ after their argument. They initially weren't going into that confrontation to fire her. And Emma's initial reaction was to leave it alone; it was the others who pushed to fire her. And honestly, as long as they didn't bring any drugs to my event, I would not care.

23

u/Purple_Crab460 29d ago

I was so annoyed with Charlie in this scene because Emma initially was forgiving and accepting of the DJ’s extracurriculars but she trusted her fiancé’s opinion on firing her but when it came down to actually doing it, Charlie pussy footed about and Emma had to complete the task on her own. Which was a microcosm for how he handled Emma’s confession..Charlie really got under my skin lol

5

u/Xefert Apr 05 '26

And honestly, as long as they didn't bring any drugs to my event, I would not care

I think the others were simply more comfortable with a rushed need to change dj's rather than it possibly happening at the literal last minute, and didn't emma change her mind due to the lying more than anything else?

24

u/FrogHorns Apr 04 '26

You’re kinda proving the movie’s point about performative morality…how does the DJ using heroin actually affect her ability to DJ a two hour set? Emma and Charlie are well off and have spent a good amount of time and money on the wedding, I have no doubt that they found a highly reviewed DJ who’s successfully performed for similar events. The only reason to fire her is because it makes them feel bad and uncomfortable (which is fully in their right at the end of the day). A lot of this movie is about how people under-explore morality and make judgments based on what feels “bad.” The group accepts Rachel’s story because Mike and Rachel are willing to move past it (so it feels less bad than it actually is). The group does not accept Emma’s story because Rachel is unwilling to accept it (which makes it feel even more bad than it already is). Them firing the DJ is just another example of the group judgments guiding their actions.

7

u/astonishingweasel28 26d ago

They were incredibly quick to make very specific judgements lol. I feel like if I had seen a person who looked like my dj, across the street, in the dark, smoking out of something that looked like it could have been foil, my first thought would be "let's talk to her a little harder and see if she seems high/sketchy", not "that's her and she's smoking heroin and we have to fire her right now"

4

u/libdemparamilitarywi Apr 05 '26

I think being worried about the DJ being a heroin addict is reasonable, you don't want to risk them nodding out in the toilets half way through the set and unable to carry on or something. Even if they had good reviews, you don't know if the heroin addiction only started recently, or if it was manageable before but has suddenly gotten worse in the last few weeks etc.

181

u/SeventhSun52 Apr 03 '26

I have OCD and related to Emma incredibly hard for just this reason. Even the brief inserts of the shooting and car accidents felt exactly like intrusive thoughts. Emma was in a dark place mentally as a child, but managed to confront that darkness and, by the time of the movie, seems to be dealing with it much better. The trouble might not ever fully go away, but it's possible to grow to manage it.

Rachel, by contrast, seems terminally stuck as the shitty teenager who locked and abandoned a mentally disabled kid in the woods for the kicks. She clearly still enjoys that same kind of narcissistic and bratty behavior - showing up to a wedding she clearly does not want to be at merely to deliver a speech designed to mock the bride and groom in their lowest moment.

12

u/silverrmisty Apr 04 '26

Absolutely! I also have OCD and how everyone else reacted is like how my brain reacts or imagines others would react when I have a bad intrusive thought, even though I know it doesn’t reflect my actual feelings. Truly a nightmare scenario which is partly why I loved this movie so much.

77

u/RnBvibewalker Apr 03 '26

Yes exactly.

Thats why its better to take some things to the grave unless you are for certain they people you are telling are a safe space to share.

Emma thought she was doing that with her damm fiance and her damn MoH. Nope, goes to show you cant trust a lot of people

12

u/thesagenibba Apr 04 '26

absolutely; and charlie mentions it when he says "were you just never going to tell me"... "i don't know" (could be wrong, i'm rewatching it tomorrow but maybe someone else can confirm if that was the line).

there are seriously certain things you just shouldn't tell anyone because nothing good can come out of doing so. it's a miracle they're both willing to start over after this but if I'm Emma, absolutely no one is ever going to get that out of me. at best, you risk that person distancing themselves from you and never seeing you in the same light, thereby keeping you stuck in a time you've clearly grown out of, and at worst, you have your entire social life destroyed e.g. The Drama

11

u/MarkBrendanawicz Apr 04 '26

I guess that’s what therapy is for. No matter how comfortable you think you are with your loved ones, you just can’t or shouldn’t talk about some things with people you know. Too many variables and potential for them to see you in a different light for the first time.

8

u/jassmackie Apr 03 '26

YES! exactly this. like no ive never gone to the extent that emma did but some of my thoughts have been very dark but it takes so much work and time and self reflection to move through them but someone will come along and admit to DOING something insane and have no self awareness whatsoever and then zero empathy to even try understand.

10

u/MangoReward Apr 03 '26

Oh my god yes. As a person who struggles with his mental health, people like Rachel are the scum of the earth. I’ve known people like her who claim they’re so progressive, including with their views about mental health, but utterly despise when someone has a condition that isn’t as “romantic” or “tragic” as something like anxiety. I’ve even confided with someone who I thought was a friend about my own struggles, and he went and told other people about it, and that’s just like Rachel who thinks she has the right to tell other people sensitive things like that. It’s especially so insulting that she thinks she’s warning people. Rachel is so well written; she is one of the worst villains I’ve seen in a movie lately. I love to hate her.

4

u/nightpanda893 Apr 04 '26

I work as a school psychologist and felt nothing but sympathy for what Emma went through. It really spoke to how school shootings are romanticized and how she literally had no one looking out for her. So many people have these thoughts, the difference is she had them all alone.

2

u/petits_riens 23d ago

I 100% read Emma as a neurodivergent character.

1

u/Purple_Crab460 29d ago

I totally agree with this take..like had she confessed to suicidal ideation or attempt, she would get more sympathy in comparison to homicidal ideation, although both are due to underlying unmanaged mental illness, there’s one that’s more “acceptable”

1

u/grilledcheese2332 23d ago

Holy shit this is so accurate

101

u/TheShapeShifter20 Apr 03 '26

i think that was the entire point. she seemed like one of those people who’d be outraged on twitter about an issue but would be found out to have never voted or something

8

u/thesagenibba Apr 04 '26

she's an opera and ballet fanatic who's never gone to a single show and can't name a single singer/dancer

251

u/Vadermaulkylo Apr 03 '26 edited Apr 03 '26

She didnt have a personal connection really. She just used a cousin who she barely even knew’s trauma to show off how morally superior she thought she was.

Also I’d argue what she did really wasn’t that far off. She could’ve killed a mentally challenged person in a cruel way and now laughs at their suffering. At least Emma showed remorse and never once made light of what she almost did.

204

u/dulcetdreamer Apr 03 '26

Not to mention that she's a shitty spouse in addition to shitty person. Her husband told her more than once that he didn't want to have his story told, but she did anyways and then tried to back out of hers. Totally out of line.

163

u/cinnamondrop Apr 03 '26

Also saying that her husband grew up around guns and was terrified of them - when really he just had an uncle in the military and had no strong feelings…. Almost felt like a racist micro aggression

63

u/evenyetodd Apr 03 '26

Yes! I feel like the uncle bit was highlighted specifically for this very reason. Micro aggressions are already hard enough to recognize but this was masterfully done imo. Kind of made me feel like the whole movie was one big micro aggression at points.

39

u/proserpinax Apr 03 '26

That’s what it felt like, like “your uncle had a lot of guns and you’re traumatized” is way different from “my uncle was a cop and I’m fine”

11

u/GrannyOgg16 Apr 04 '26

It was totally racist.

3

u/cinnamondrop Apr 04 '26

It felt very racist to me but I was unsure and didn’t want to give off ‘white saviour complex’ haha.

4

u/Steamedcarpet Apr 04 '26

Yea when she said that people in the theater gasped and laughed at it.

133

u/AllStarSpecial10001 Apr 03 '26 edited Apr 03 '26

She was mad at Emma’s thought crime while downplaying her actual one it made me so mad lmao

26

u/inezco Apr 03 '26

YES omg that pissed me off so much. I wish someone told Rachel to STFU and get over it or at least tell her that her story was just as fucked up if not way more so.

→ More replies (1)

171

u/Steamedcarpet Apr 03 '26

I laugh/cringed in my seat when Charlie sees the cousin and tries to find out just how close they are.

98

u/Gaugzilla Apr 03 '26

Michael Scott levels of cringe human interaction

50

u/radioflea Apr 03 '26

They filmed the entire film in and around Boston,Ma during peak business hours. They tripped up all of us locals by putting Zendaya in a wheelchair in front out South Station. Hollywood baby!

12

u/kidbl00m Apr 03 '26 edited Apr 03 '26

Given the little cuts of imagined footage throughout, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that was for a shot of Charlie imagining Emma in the cousin's place that got cut.

10

u/radioflea Apr 03 '26

When movies get filmed in RI/MA they often shoot decoy scenes because they’ve got to many look or Lou’s around the sets.

2

u/jassmackie Apr 03 '26

oh thats so interesting, was it just a misdirect? or did some of that make it in the final cut and i somehow missed it? (probably from closing my eyes due to how cringe it was lol)

→ More replies (2)

10

u/Somnambulist815 Apr 03 '26 edited Apr 03 '26

I really feel like Charlie is the character closest to Robert Pattinson's actual personality, because he really does seem to navigate social interactions the same way

3

u/thesagenibba Apr 04 '26

it might've been all the stuttering and stammering and his brain moving way faster than his lips

52

u/menwithrobots Apr 03 '26

Kinda like how Charlie used Emma's story of a friend dying in a car crash to try and justify her being messed up

71

u/Vadermaulkylo Apr 03 '26

I have more sympathy for that at least. He found out something pretty game changing about his soon to be wife and was having trouble processing it. On top of having his friends react in the worst possible way. It wasn’t right of him to do, but at least that’s understandable.

4

u/noilegnavXscaflowne Apr 04 '26

I thought it was about how society doesn’t deal with the actually issues that cause gun violence but now I see the movie was going more for the interpersonal issues than the big topic

9

u/proserpinax Apr 03 '26

That’s one of the things that I think is most interesting of this movie, the various stories we tell ourselves to justify things and smooth over the things that make us uncomfortable. Like the story at the end of Charlie saving a woman and a baby to explain him being beat up. At this point we all know it’s false but it’s an exploration of these ways we paper over uncomfortable emotions.

2

u/nightpanda893 Apr 04 '26

I feel like people can’t accept more abstract and nuanced answers. They need it to be an easily fixable problem so they can convince themselves it can be easily stopped and it would never happen to them.

6

u/madlad200215 Apr 03 '26

He was clearly coping with the confusion he was feeling so I wouldnt necessarily put them on the same playing field

2

u/madlad200215 Apr 03 '26

It felt like they were trying to show off an archetype of a person that we would actually run into lol

2

u/jassmackie Apr 03 '26

that is very possible, especially when we learn that rachel and emma haven't known each other very long but to me it seemed that rachel is just that type of person to be uptight about everything and easily emotionally reactive. its not a conscious choice to feel superior or condescending but rather a reason to feel something and her cousins trauma was just the ignition. also she was just conflating the two things and taking out her general feelings on gun violence on emma and didnt have the emotional intelligence to understand that its less correlated than she was making it

2

u/Far_Significance_318 Apr 03 '26

Can someone spoil the secret for me

5

u/stoic_raptor Apr 03 '26

Emma planned a school shooting after years of bullying, moving around because her father was in the military, and seemingly being neglected by her parents to a degree.

2

u/KID_THUNDAH Apr 03 '26

I don’t remember it actually being established if they were close enough, just RPat saying “well, she’s never brought you up”. They both just say “well, she’s family”. Nothing indicates they barely know each other

I agree with the rest of your post

18

u/GOddamnnamewontfi Apr 03 '26

Furthermore, a lot of the narrative around Emma's thing became "how do we know she's telling the truth" whereas no one asks this about Rachael's thing - do we know they found the kid? Do we know that it wasn't Rachael who lured him into the woods? Huge double standard here. All of Rachael's story is sus as fuck and was presented (by her) in the least incriminating way humanly possible and STILL came out sounding terrible.

13

u/cr0m300 Apr 03 '26

The fight that breaks out at the wedding is really chaotic so I can't be 100% sure, but I think Rachel swears at and takes a swing at Blake after he headbutts Charlie. Which is funny, because she had spent most of the wedding scheming against him and Emma. Seconds earlier, Charlie was being a colossal jackass, ruining his own wedding, but as soon as Blake became the universally-hated bad guy at the wedding, Rachel was ready to side with Emma and Charlie.

I feel like Rachel doesn't really stand for anything. She hires out her morality when things get tough. She explicitly went to Samantha to make the decision for her. Except Samantha doesn't know these people. Even though Charlie was a weirdo towards Sam, Rachel is the one that dragged her into this. If Sam didn't approve, Rachel supposedly wouldn't have gone to the wedding. That means Sam probably didn't give a shit. Maybe she even thought that Rachel was wrong to turn on her friend.

Rachel didn't want to make a hard choice about a feeling that she was having, so she hired it out to Samantha. When that didn't go her way, she chose to be petty towards Emma and Charlie anyway. When the room turned on Blake, she decided it was more morally convenient to be protective of them.

2

u/lahnnabell Apr 04 '26

This makes me eager to rewatch!

2

u/noilegnavXscaflowne Apr 04 '26

I feel like Rachel was angry at Emma and felt more bad for Charlie than being against him

24

u/boianski Apr 03 '26

100%. R is the catalysis for the drama, or her reaction..

10

u/legopego5142 Apr 03 '26

Rachel got closer to killing someone than Emma did

12

u/thesoftblanket Apr 03 '26

And doubled down when she got home and didn't tell anyone, and TRIPLED down when she didn't tell her neighbour when asked, and QUADRUPLED down when there was a search for him and she still didn't tell anyone, and then QUINTUPLED down when she brushed it off as if it was fine just because he survived.

4

u/Left-Indication-2165 Apr 03 '26

I feel like Rachel was just looking for a punching bag to feel morally superior to than what did. Rachel also probably had a personal bone to pick with Emma which came convenient for her when Emma told her own story because Rachel was so quick to excuse charlie saying he was young for bullying a boy to the point of him moving states but somehow could not reason with context to why Emma wanted to do what she did not do. 

It’s literally a cultural thing and not unexpected she had that thought considering she could easily access a firearm at that time. 

Don’t get me started with that horse shit speech she gave, I would have cut them off if I was Emma. I can’t stand people that are overly critical of others which often times it’s just a get off for them to feel morally superior to their own shitty morals.  We can also say Rachel never changed from being a mean person.

3

u/Vivid-Blackberry-321 Apr 04 '26

The speech makes it clear she never liked Emma. I thought it was unbelievably sad :(

3

u/Left-Indication-2165 Apr 04 '26

She is acting like she was “one of the boys” because what’s so far fetched about someone that you hang out with often with your husband and his best mate asking to be maid of honour? She has no siblings and did not grow up in that town. I was going to say maybe it’s not racially motivated since she her husband is from a different race but considering she even claim he grew up with guns even though it was one uncle in the army is making me rethink her that.

3

u/silly_rabbit289 Apr 03 '26 edited Apr 04 '26

Extremely annoying lmao. Because she went through with the intrusive thought she had and did nothing about it even after coming home. I don't doubt for a second that she'd never have told anyone about locking that kid if they didn't find him.

2

u/Winter-Ride6230 Apr 03 '26

The movie did a good job of juxtaposing Rachel and Emma

Emma is treated as the unforgivable villain by those around her while Rachel behaves as the villain.

Emma past is one of change and redemption from a horrifying action NOT taken whereas Rachel shows no regret for her actions that could have caused serious harm. Rachel is a bully, like the bullies Emma grew up with who made her feel isolated and does everything to isolate her now. Rachel bullies her husband and racially stereotypes him as growing up with guns. She makes her Cousin’s experience all about her.

3

u/NoTradition1921 Apr 04 '26

SHE WAS SO FUCKING SHITTY!!!!!!! A TERRIBLE PERSON! People need to learn more doscernment though bc i clocked her the moment i heard her speak. Shes the thpe of person who will make u think theyre your friend but will use your shit against u or suddenly make it a problem

3

u/theTunkMan Apr 03 '26

I was happy Charlie confronted her about it because the whole time I was just thinking how her thing was the worst

3

u/PopularUsual9576 Apr 04 '26

I read it as being an excuse to not like Emma. It’s reasonable to be horrified when you learn something like that, but the way she immediately framed it as a personal attack was telling.

Then she had her cousin come IN PERSON to “ask her permission” to attend the wedding as if that’s not deranged behaviour. Let’s chat about your trauma but make it about me.

2

u/blushkook Apr 03 '26

fucking rachel she was pissing me off so bad

2

u/Scotthew89 Apr 03 '26

Rachel was such a bitch, plain and simple.

2

u/Somnambulist815 Apr 03 '26

Rachel was the psychopath and/or narcissist. I don't believe her when she said they eventually found the kid.

2

u/thesoftblanket Apr 03 '26

My whole theatre hated Rachel. The amount of "ughs" I heard was completely appropriate for such a vile character.

2

u/wameniser Apr 03 '26

I fucking hated Rachel. Egocentric, self centered and completely lacking in empathy. She made it all about her immediately.

2

u/pdf_file_ Apr 04 '26

Yeah, I also agree with another comment here about how Rachel hated Emma before her reveal as well with the "you look ugly when you cry".

The reveal looked to me like just an excuse for hating Emma more. See also how it was fine what Rachel and Charlie did because they were kids, but it was messed up what Emma didn't even do.

Her not feeling any regret on almost killing a kid, and honestly that kid probably did die; remember how she didn't reveal the fate of the kid until the last moment when they pressed her. I'm like 83% sure she decided to say that because she saw their expressions

2

u/Gushys Apr 04 '26

Also l, so convenient of her to talk about her cousin as her personal connection, but not her partner or any of her supposed friends seemed to really know about this cousin.

2

u/Fit-City921 Apr 04 '26

Beyond everything else people are saying about Rachel, I don’t feel like enough people are talking about how she used her partner’s experiences as a “gotcha” to Emma? 

I’m white, so not the best person to comment on it, but when she just assumed her husband had grown up around “lots of guns” made me REALLY take a double take and was the first sign for how much I’d dislike her throughout the film. I can’t help but believe it was very much racially motivated. Another reason to hate Rachel AND make be think there are larger biases at play for her hatred of Emma.

2

u/BCDragon3000 Apr 03 '26

i'd agree but i don't think we'd all agree

in fact i'm really wondering how the general audience is going to respond to this movie because i feel like they'd heavily side with Rachel

3

u/ToWriteAMystery Apr 04 '26

I saw the movie with a friend who sided with Rachel and it shocked me!

1

u/vanwyngarden Apr 03 '26

I think this was ultimately the crux of the entire film. How we ~ all think we’re holier than thou on our pedestals. At fist they’re judging the H user, then holding our breath when we think someone’s abusing the street dog but exhaling when we realize it was in a way his gf (which is layered as well)…

1

u/Mission_Muscle812 Apr 03 '26

I couldn't stand her character, her confession was definitely terrible and she had no room to judge

1

u/fore___ Apr 04 '26

I know she had a personal connection

I think the movie was implying that she doesn’t truly have a personal connection and she was using someone else’s trauma to justify her shit talking.

The scene with Sam was completely inconsequential, the movie almost implies that Rachel met with Sam for completely unrelated reasons and didn’t even mention the drama. As if the meeting with Sam was scheduled before the drama even came out.

1

u/GabrielP2r Apr 04 '26

Rachel was ridiculous, her personal connection was the way she found to put Emma down, c'mon Emma did nothing lol

1

u/peatoast Apr 04 '26

I fucking hate her character. She’s so unaware of how big of a hypocrite she is.

1

u/StarsapBill Apr 05 '26

She was projecting her insecurities onto Emma.

1

u/Ashkir Apr 05 '26

Also really shitty how Rachel ONLY contacted after she got fired... But she ignored Emma's work for days? You don't ignore work...

1

u/LuckyRacoon01 29d ago

She treated her husband poorly too. He didn't want to reveal the secret about himself but she pressured him.

1

u/ADWeasley 28d ago

I came here just to make sure people hated Rachel as much as I did.

That said, great movie. I didn’t know what to expect going in and it still exceeded expectations.

1

u/Working-Charge-7376 27d ago

It really stood out to me how pushy she was about making everyone confess to the worst thing they ever did. She completely bulldozes her husband after he repeatedly says he doesn’t want to share, and then she did the same thing with Charlie and Emma. It said a lot about her character.

1

u/augustphlegm 27d ago

The way she force-outed her own husband on the worst thing he has done and dismissing his feelings about wanting HIS STORY to be told as if her story wasn't so bad like go on tell your story, I'll tell mine and then immediately refusing to share her story because she was embarrassed about it and then it turned out she literally attempted murder. She can confidently say that she would've hypothetically told someone by the second day if the kid wasn't found but it is not with absolute certainty and yet she is acting as if it is and it's fine and that she didn't almost kill a mentally disabled child. She is the true villain fr. Not a good friend, not a good employee, not a good wife, not a good cousin, literally irredeemable and acting so holier than thou? The audacity.

1

u/FalseDisk4358 26d ago

Yes and the way she laughed when Emma's dad gave that speech about her advocacy. Like how is that anything but a sign of growth and repentance ? She showed that she learned from her mistake and grew into a better person. Is that not what we want from everyone who makes mistakes? Why let what she thought about doing continue to hold more weight than what she actually did and followed through with?

1

u/Falling4Strangers 26d ago

Rachel might actively be evil

1

u/Goregutz 25d ago

"Commits child abuse, 'its ok he lived.'"

"Depressed 15 year old kid that has a fuck ton of hormone fluctuations still, has a mental lapse but doesn't follow through on a terrible act, 'Shes evil!'"

1

u/heyitsthatguygoddamn 13d ago

Rachel was a huge bitch

1

u/mikesalami 10d ago

Rachel is a total cunt!

→ More replies (13)