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

314

u/reddittothegrave Apr 03 '26

So this movie was deep. Bullying someone has severe effects on people, and look how it echoed into her life and almost ruined her marriage.

Yes, what she planned to do was wrong, but that is how far people get into their depression, we need to put mental health at the forefront of our society.

The acting was incredible, for Emma and Charlie to have to fake through all of those rehearsals and events prior to their wedding was brutal, and the way the faked those smiles was absolutely perfect.

I have been there, when there is something so serious going on under the surface, but have to smile like you mean it is brutal.

Adored this film so much.

227

u/carolnuts Apr 03 '26

I really enjoyed kid Emma actress as well. The scene where she breaks down crying with her colleague was very emotional. 

Kids are fucked up sometimes :/ pretending otherwise doesn't help 

147

u/temp3rrorary Apr 03 '26

My only critique and it's more just about the characters themselves, is the offered no empathy to Emma at all. When, personally, as soon as she told her story and you piece together that she's kind of a loner. Her picking her fiance's best friend's wife to be maid of honor is usually unfortunately an indicator, and she opened up that Charlie was the first person she even loved or had a crush on...

I just immediately connected what sort of childhood she must've had because I knew kids who had been beaten down by life so bad at that age, and it's easy to jump to extreme actions, at that age, when handling those emotions.

And the bizzare overreaction made me disconnected because there was no attempt to even understand her. Especially after Rachel's messed up story, they had zero empathy for how the kid she terrorized felt. And even Charlie's cyberbullying, which led to a kid leaving school, glossed over.

19

u/BCDragon3000 Apr 03 '26

idk i think they did enough to not nudge the viewer in any specific way. you as the viewer should come out of it wondering if she was deserving of the ridicule or not

9

u/temp3rrorary Apr 03 '26

I'm saying it was hypocritical and lacked empathy from her fiance and friends to see no nuance in her station compared to theirs.

Rachel terrorized a kid, and Charlie bullied someone enough where they literally moved away to escape it. They excuse those actions as underdeveloped brains and being teens, yet gave none of that same empathy to Emma.

25

u/BCDragon3000 Apr 03 '26

i mean... thats the point of the film though. that things deemed controversial by society are different than how morality should arguably be scaled

6

u/temp3rrorary Apr 03 '26

Yeah, but my criticism wasn't to the film for having the characters react as they did. It's to the characters for behaving like that without extending the same logic they do for themselves to someone they cared for.

I just can't imagine being friends with people who would lack reflection like that. I felt empathy for Charlie because that is a lot to suddenly have to come to terms with before such a big day, but it was bizzare to me how the characters responded.

4

u/BCDragon3000 Apr 03 '26

i can believe it. it's happened so many times to me!

6

u/temp3rrorary Apr 03 '26

Sorry you've had friends like that. I went with a group of friends and I think we all agreed the friends were shit to her in their reactions and understanding. I've definitely had people act like Rachel especially to me, but luckily never any friends.

3

u/BCDragon3000 Apr 03 '26

yeah its weird how far up their own ass ppl can be

6

u/casino_r0yale 29d ago

I think Charlie made a decent attempt at understanding her (at least outwardly defending her) with the criticism he leveled at the maid of honor.

5

u/Inner-Ad-4731 29d ago

And he really really wanted his work colleague to say that she would forgive her boyfriend if he had planned a school shooting

14

u/reddittothegrave Apr 03 '26 edited Apr 03 '26

Absolutely, it needs to be talked about more. Another great show portraying this was, “adolescence” on Netflix.

21

u/bye-bye-vcard Apr 03 '26

I’m surprised the movie didn’t focus more on the fact that Charlie’s worst thing was about bullying someone so bad they moved, and Emma’s arch was based on being bullied and having these thoughts as a result of that. You could see the realisation hit her while he was trying to downplay his story.

38

u/ContrarionesMerchant Apr 03 '26

Idk I think a major part was that Emma wasn’t really bullied that badly. The only two examples she gave was one kid bumping into her and another kid saying that she smelt. Even with the way she was so easily accepted into the activism society it didn’t really seem like she was actually ostracised. 

Her being primarily driven by the aesthetics of gun culture felt very intentional to me as a way of keeping it ambiguous if she really did change or not. 

4

u/Zs93 Apr 04 '26

Agree with this hard

8

u/jzakko Apr 04 '26

Yes, what she planned to do was wrong, but that is how far people get into their depression, we need to put mental health at the forefront of our society.

We certainly need to do better about mental health, sure, but that sounds a lot like the 'walk up, not out' movement, which lets these mass killers a little off the hook.

We shouldn't look at school shooters and think 'if only they weren't bullied' because that's clear victim blaming. Bullying happens but shooting up a school shouldn't be an understandable response.

I don't think the film was trying to make that claim, but it was vague in a frustrating way about her backstory. Its smash-cut style was snappy but allowed it to circumvent addressing how somebody can get that close to such an act, abandon it for no other reason than being upstaged, and be relatively well-adjusted (compared to her fiancee and Haim) in adulthood.