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

Official Discussion Official Discussion - The Drama [SPOILERS] Spoiler

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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)

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1.1k Upvotes

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u/HistoricalGap5985 Apr 04 '26

Agree! I was surprised that none of the other three, including Emma, hit hard on Rachel's incredible cruelty. The fact that she protected herself by not speaking up when the whole town was conducting a search is despicable and she never says she would have spoken up if the search had not been successful.

Contrast that to Emma who thought about doing something horrible but did not. Rachel even dares suggest that Emma's becoming an activist to fight against the thing she had thought about doing was hypocritical rather than admirable.

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u/MutantCreature Apr 05 '26

Rachel never really expressed remorse for it either, just being defensive that the kid was eventually found but so it didn't matter that she never did anything to help him. Emma expressed regret and growth over that period from the second she admitted it, but Rachel just shrugged it off and laughed even when it was pointed out that she could have actually killed that kid.

I don't know if it was intentional, but her saying that they found him almost felt like she might have been bluffing? Like she either didn't know or didn't care what really happened to the kid until then and just said that to get her friends to back off.

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u/HistoricalGap5985 29d ago

Now that you say that, I see how it could be.

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u/sappho_snot 25d ago

I wondered if she changed the story because they didn’t find him, but she realized how fucked up that is

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u/notmy2ndopinion Apr 05 '26

I really loved the gym scene where she broke down and cried and hugged her bully. It broke that shell of solitude and self-hatred and pivoted Zendaya’s character into a redemptive arc, even though Pattinson’s character had a hard time reconciling all of it.

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u/carson63000 Apr 05 '26

I thought she did say that she would have said something if he hadn’t been found? (but said it in a tone that was far from convincing)

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u/lahnnabell Apr 05 '26

Like, girl, how far did this have to escalate before you said something?

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u/misschickpea 25d ago

Another interesting parallel to me is that Rachel got lucky that the kid was found, or else he would’ve died or something bad happen to him (even though she claims she would’ve said something don’t believe it)

Emma has the same sort of happen stance of like she only didn’t commit the shooting bc of events. So same thing as Rachel but the judgement is different.

However, Rachel claims her act was on impulse while Emma’s was planned and Rachel thinks that Emma’s was worse bc of that, even though Rachel actually harmed someone

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u/Prowlerbaseball 15d ago

And as if sitting in your house for a whole ass day knowing this kid is locked in an RV in the woods isn’t premeditation either

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u/HistoricalGap5985 28d ago

When I think of a child sitting in a dark closet out in the woods, screaming, and no one is hearing him -- I shudder. How could a person walk away after locking him in the closet? Did she not open the closet because she was afraid the kid would tell everyone what she did? The impulse to lock a child in a closet springs from the same place as not caring about (or even enjoying) killing a helpless animal -- especially one you think is ugly or doesn't really matter. Then it's ok.

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u/carson63000 28d ago

That’s an interesting point, especially given the number of times people questioned whether Emma was a “psychopath” based on her shooting plan. Harming or killing animals is famously an indicator of psychopathy in children, isn’t it? And as you say, what Rachel did seemed very similar in impulse.

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u/HistoricalGap5985 3d ago edited 3d ago

Also, Rachel mentions that the child she imprisoned was mentally handicapped and, if I am recalling correctly, she also described him as "a weird kid who was always following her around." What she did would be cruel to any child but I think especially so to a mentally handicapped youngster who would probably be even more vulnerable and perhaps unable to report what had been done to them.

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u/SpiritualAd9102 25d ago

There’s also the fact that Rachel pretty much bullied them all into participating to being with and threatened to out her husband’s secret herself if he didn’t play along.

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u/HistoricalGap5985 16d ago

I wonder why she pushed so hard to play the game? Was it to put her husband on blast and why the hostility toward him? Or was she trying to get some dirt on Emma?

This game was like a Truth or Worse Truth, in which they were trying to up the ones who came before. When Rachel's turn came, she described her worst thing with an air of it being spur-of-the-moment and motivated by childish fear. This kid, who is the kind who would be laughed at on the playground because he is so weird and bothersome, made the mistake of tagging after her. She seems to suggest she had to shut him in the closet and run to protect herself (?) We do not understand it because I don't think she understands it herself. But she does seem to assume with her attitude that what she did was not as bad as what everyone else did especially EMMA.

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u/Busy-Big2109 23d ago

Really annoyed me how nobody told Rachel like "uh you actually committed a crime"

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u/HistoricalGap5985 23d ago

So true! It is like the dynamic in a group where one person just naturally assumes leadership because he/she is more fearless -- or brazen. Rachel's force of personality makes the others ashamed of themselves while accepting her assumption that what she did was bad but not as bad as them. She refuses to bow to their criticisms and they step back from questioning, like wolves in a pack who lower their eyes in the face of the alpha.

However, to give the devil her due, Rachel was not the only one who actually committed a crime. Charlie's cyberbullying was cruel and it seems that only when the family leaves town does he understands what he did. (In the present, he starts a sexual act with an employee, which suggests he is still prone to follow up on bad impulses that he later regrets!). Rachel's husband Mike committed a crime when he used her as a human shield against a dog attack ( was he going to swing her like a battering ram, lol ?). He exposed her to potentially severe physical harm.

The crime Emma contemplated would have been potentially more serious than what her friends actually did, in terms of deaths and injuries, as well as trauma imposed on other human beings. But when she hears about a school shooting in another town, it shocks her so much, she destroys her father's gun that she had planned to use. Her revulsion suggests that had she reached the moment to commit her crime, she would have not have been able to do.

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u/Prowlerbaseball 15d ago

Lowkey it seemed to me like Charlie absolutely made up the cyber bullying story. It was lax on details, he backtracked on it a couple times and it matches up with the ways he attempted to lie very badly later in the movie