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On March 17, I attended the premiere of Kristoffer Borgli’s fourth feature film, The Drama, at the Directors Guild of America theater. Rabid Shake It Up! lovers and Twilight diehards lined the entrance, and some of them spilled into the theater. The crowd was a curious mix of selfie-taking fans, familiar friendly faces of fellow press, and prestigious Hollywood names like Jeremy Kleiner from Plan B. Considering we were at the DGA, it was mostly filmmakers.
It was nice to see Spider-Man: A Brand New Day director Destin Daniel Cretton come out to support Zendaya (aka MJ). Dune franchise godfather Denis Villeneuve was also on hand to cheer on Zendaya AND Robert Pattinson, who appear in the upcoming installment of the sci-fi drama. All we were missing was Christopher Nolan to cheer on his Odyssey stars.
The roster of directors spotted was like a cool kids’ table at lunch: Sebastián Silva, Janicza Bravo, Lorene Scafaria, Lulu Wang, and Barry Jenkins. Oscar-nominated actor and founder of the fictitious band Crucifictorious, Jesse Plemons, sat casually amongst the hoi polloi and was more than happy to take photos with fans who approached him with endearing shyness.
Peppered throughout the audience was a random collection of people that somehow made sense: Kehlani, Rico Nasty, Coco Jones, Pink Panthress, Tove Lo, Ryan Destiny, and Katy O’Brian. As per usual, The Traitors icon Maura Higgins looked stunning in a Do Long look while Suki Waterhouse, draped in a wild, corseted armored patchwork dress, was arm-in-arm with her boo Pattinson, who was dressed in a Dior suit that was giving a The Birdcage color story.
It was a very A24 crowd.
It was supposed to start at 7 PM, but like all Hollywood premieres, I knew it wasn’t going to start on time. A fellow press member and I made a no-money bet on how late the screening would start. Using Price is Right rules, I guessed the program would start at 7:35 PM, and my press colleague strategically said 7:32 PM.
It started at 7:33 PM. I lost.
Borgli introduced the film and brought out the core cast. The debonair Mamoudou Athie and Alana Haim, in a Morticia Adams-chic Louis Vuitton gown, were joined by Pattinson and Zendaya, who was dressed in a Vivienne Westwood dress that she wore to the Academy Awards in 2015. It was the same year that Giuliana Rancic said some ignorant bullshit about her dreads.
Thus began Law Roach’s ingenious master plan that would perfectly sync with the wedding theme of The Drama. Intentionally or not, Zendaya wearing the Westwood throws the most scant amount of shade considering the dress’s history and the movie’s title. The white Westwood dress was the “something old,” and that set the stage for her “something new”: a gorgeous white Louis Vuitton dress with a glorious black train that hugged her body most sickeningly.
“Something borrowed” was a low-cut black gown with what looks like an obsidian-stoned neckline. She finished the cycle with “something blue”: an extravagant gown sculpted out of black and strikingly blue plumage with a robust and full Dreamgirls tiered skirt to boot.
The Drama is a wild, unapologetic genre-fluid concoction that is cut from the same cinematic cloth as Borgli’s previous surreal film, Dream Scenario. The Drama exaggerates reality and pushes the envelope on hot-button topics that will be considered rage bait for some, satire for others, and a chaotic mess for everyone else.
Zendaya plays Emma, who is about to marry Charlie. All feels normal as Borgli stitches together a visual scrapbook of the highs and lows of Emma and Charlie’s relationship.
It’s all fun and games until the standard romantic dramedy formula is disrupted during a drinking game.
During a drinking game with their friends, Rachel (Alana Haim) and Mike (Mamoudou Athie), Emma confesses something totally unhinged that alters the entire pH balance of the film. Her confession (which I will keep under my hat because it’s better if you experience it yourself) turns everyone’s world upside down, and the film becomes a journey of constantly asking yourself, “Should I be offended by this?”
The shock value of “the twist” is enough for people to hate or love this film. But whether you drag it or praise it, Borgli was bold in his choices and ambitious in his execution. The film itself is fine and is one or two edits away from being self-indulgent. Even so, Borgli gives us something new, fresh, and insane enough to stir the homogeneous pot of Hollywood content and rightfully piss people off.
It’s certainly a stage for Zendaya and Pattinson to exercise their acting chops as they illustrate how if one’s past defines their present; whether or not forgiveness has limits; and if empathy can be exhausted. It also questions the concept of unconditional love.
Pattinson and Zendaya mesh well as a couple trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Pattinson’s performance is evidence that his has entered his endearingly bumbling and charmingly broken era of acting a la Hugh Grant — but Zendaya is clearly the focus of this cautionary tale of marriage.
The severity of the “twist” confession weighs down on the character of Emma, making her dark and evil. Fresh off One Battle After Another, where it felt like none of the Black women won, The Drama puts the Black woman in the role that many can perceive as the villain role. What she does (or doesn’t do) can be seen as unforgivable, and in a time of systemic representation, the character Emma can be read as a problematic trope of an angry Black woman.
It’s not a good look.
.
This is not uncommon for Zendaya’s projects. She received backlash for playing drug-riddled Rue in the very adult Euphoria. Many argued that her character was glorifying addiction. During the pandemic, Zendaya collaborated with Euphoria’s Sam Levinson on the black-and-white two-hander Malcolm & Marie, which starred her and John David Washington as a Hollywood couple whose relationship is tested after a big movie premiere. The film was panned and criticized for being a movie about a Black couple written by a white man. Despite the criticisms thrown her way, the artistic choices she has made in her career show that she is willing to take risks in roles that push her limits as an actress and show how far she has come since Shake It Up! In 2026 alone, she is showing her versatility in an arthouse romance, prestige sci-fi Oscar bait, and a comic book movie. Not a lot of actors – let alone female actors of color have this kind of freedom in Hollywood.
The Drama swings for the fences and puts stacks and stacks of dynamite around the genre of romance and detonates it with an evil mad scientist laugh. The film interrogates thematic elements of trust and the complex American Ninja Warrior obstacle course of emotions that come with marriage. At the same time, it uses moral conflict as a smoke bomb that delightfully disorients the audience with plot points that shock and take unexpected, sharp left turns. The shock and awe of it all is stronger than the actual narrative, which doesn’t satisfy, but it’s enough to be entertained.
If anything, The Dramai is validation for me to never get married – or even be in a relationship, for that matter. Seeing the deteriorating madness of matrimony in The Drama taught me that being a hoe is the only way to go.
