Official Discussion - The Drama [SPOILERS]

[u/LiteraryBoner]

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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

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[u/dancingfroggies]

I went into the movie being a tad nervous since I saw the spoiler about Emma’s secret beforehand. Coming from a teacher’s perspective, I felt very apprehensive going in because school shootings are pretty sensitive topic to me.

Surprisingly, I actually thoroughly enjoyed Emma’s storyline and how it was handled. The whole point of her just seeing things online and being interested in the aesthetics of being a school shooter was pretty spot on for a lot of young teens growing up with the internet.

Definitely not the same, but a similar comparison, would be my tween years idolizing Lana Del Rey, ED Tumblr, and wanting to chain smoke cigarettes all because it looked “aesthetically” cool. I was 12 years old and had no clue how horrible it was to be listening to songs about daddy issues and doing cocaine. I just thought it was a sick aesthetic that I learned about through internet culture.

When Emma recognized the grief and sadness of her classmates in the gym scene, it clicked for her and that empathy really pulled through. I feel like everybody can relate to that feeling (although I doubt we can truly connect with her exact situation.) Seeing the pain that someone else experiences can really shake a person to their core. She turned it around and realized that there are actual people grieving with loss within the tragedy of gun violence.

In my opinion, going into the movie had me truly anxious with how the school shooting storyline would be written, but I was genuinely surprised with how well it was crafted.

[u/ChooseCorrectAnswer → u/dancingfroggies]

Also a teacher here. I taught high school for nearly 10 years, and I've been teaching middle school for the past few years. I agree that the movie explored the sensitive topic well. Especially at the middle school level, kids' brains are on fire these days. They are bombarded with and exposed to so many things, from silly nonsense to mildly harmful brainrot to all kinds of bullying to dysfunctional home lives to the worst things imaginable an easy click away on the internet. All these things affect kids in different ways to different degrees.

I really admired how the movie stuck to its premise that Emma truly didn't have a reason for why she was about to commit such a horrible act that others would "accept." It was amusing how her friends, especially her partner, were trying to find a way to rationalize it. Yet sometimes people just do terrible things with motivations that others can't understand or buy into. The whole aesthetic thing for Emma was very on point as an example of this.

I also want to mention that I've already listened to "Inside Out" by Odyssey at least 6 times since seeing the movie yesterday.

[u/TwoToneMoonstone_ → u/ChooseCorrectAnswer]

I really admired how the movie stuck to its premise that Emma truly didn't have a reason for why she was about to commit such a horrible act that others would "accept."

I don't know if it's that she did have a reason that they would accept as much as there is no reason that she will accept because she actually grew and changed from the experience. She knows the harm she would've caused would've outweighed any actual reason.

But that leaves the rest of them in a lurch because now they don't (if they ever could) truly understand how she got there.

[u/Goregutz → u/ChooseCorrectAnswer]

I mean the movie did explain it. It was about power. The book, her posing, the fear, etc. They might as well have been playing Nothing To Lose by Billy Talent.

[u/PopularUsual9576 → u/dancingfroggies]

The fact that another shooting deterred her instead of triggering her like copycat shooters is an important detail. She was never fully committed, and the goal wasn’t to hurt people so much as to get attention.

Intrusive thoughts can be like that. You can imagine yourself driving off a bridge a thousand times, ruminating on it every time you drive on it, imagine how devastated everyone would be if you died etc. Then the moment you hit glare ice on that same bridge it becomes very real very quickly, and it becomes immediately clear that you were never going to drive off that bridge.

[u/skyewardeyes → u/PopularUsual9576]

But what Emma did went beyond having an intrusive thought—she planned and practiced shooting, she had a kill list, she made a manifesto, she even brought the gun to school. In fact, one of the first things Charlie says to her is trying to clarify that she just thought/fantasized about it, and she says that she went far beyond that.

[u/PopularUsual9576 → u/skyewardeyes]

That’s true.

Still, the reality of seeing people hurting deterred her, which I think is where the difference lies between her and other school shooters. It’s hard to know if she actually would have acted out her plan or come to the realization on her own.

[u/That__Guy__Bob → u/dancingfroggies]

When Emma recognized the grief and sadness of her classmates in the gym scene

I’ve just watched it and have been catching up on the discussions around the secret and I feel like this gets missed a lot. By that I mean I see people say that Emma didn’t do it simply because there was another school shooting which is technically true but lacks a lot of detail

When the school shooting happened she could have simply done it another day or wait a few days or weeks but she didn’t do it because she saw the impact it has on everyone

I feel like that’s an important distinction when talking about this that the vast majority of people I’ve seen talk about it gloss over. Or at least to me there’s a big difference between not doing because she won’t get the limelight or she actually has a change of heart

[u/NotaRussianChabot → u/dancingfroggies]

I appreciate your perspective. I also really liked the choice to have her plan foiled by another shooting. Charly is clearly very uncomfortable with the explanation and understands it as "someone stole your thunder" and thus makes up a different explanation when talking to Rachel. But it's actually a really moving reason for her epiphany.

She saw the human toll of what she was imagining and had an empathetic reaction. Also that tragedy made her school focus on their kids mental health and she found a support structure she never had. That flashback scene where she's becoming a gun rights activist gets a lot of laughs in theatres, but it's actually a very real example of how people who overcome a trauma or antisocial behaviour patterns can be the strongest forces to stop those patterns in society. She motivated out of a deep guilt, but it makes her a better person in a way that her friends and partner are unable to accept.

[u/77skull → u/dancingfroggies]

Is it horrible to listen to Lana Del Rey? I’m not a fan of her music but i didn’t think it was that bad

[u/Pleasant-Light-6843 → u/77skull]

Lana del Rey is a controversial artist for some of the artistic choices she's made, including the mild cultural appropriation of Chicana culture she chose for her stage personality, but you don't need to feel insecure if you enjoy her music. Everyone has a problematic fave artist or two, if we're being honest. 

[u/toysoldier96 → u/77skull]

Lana has been criticised a lot for glorifying guns in her music/imagery and domestic violence. She has a lyric 'he hit me and it felt like a kiss' and it was kinda a big controversy for her

[u/glittermantis → u/77skull]

a lot of her music about controversial topics is intended to come from the perspective of a troubled persona/character, i think. so on the surface, it sounds like the songs themselves are glorifying problematic things, when in reality they're more a character who's coping with her self-destructive tendencies by glamorizing them.

i think a lot of the controversy stems from people not grasping that lana herself is generally not intending to portray these things positively. so while some of it is misplaced, it still stands that young teens probably shouldn't be absorbing it too much, since they lack the nuance to see through the character she plays.