Spoilers: What Is the Ick in 'The Drama' Explained

Though I was intensely intrigued by the hook in Robert Pattinson and Zendaya’s The Drama, it took me nearly a month to get around to finally watching it. And now? I finally know what “the drama” was all about, and honestly, I think it warranted the mysterious marketing campaign, which effectively milked $100 million worldwide out of a $28 million budget — a huge financial success for a movie of this size for A24.

But also, knowing the “secret” wouldn’t really ruin the movie, either. The twist is interesting, but it’s what writer/director Kristoffer Borgli (who I know has some issues) does with the secret that makes The Drama so effective. It’s not what the secret is so much as how it plants a seed that sends these characters into downward spirals, and how Borgli just makes the audience sit in the discomfort. It’s easily the most uncomfortable movie I’ve seen since last year’s best horror movie, Friendship — only The Drama never really provides a release valve for it. It makes the audience sit and wallow in it until it’s finally, mercifully over, and you can go home and watch an episode of Shrinking or The Office to cleanse the palate. Needless to say, I kind of loved it.

Spoilers

So, what is the “ick” moment in The Drama? It starts with a foursome of friends sitting around with a few bottles of wine, days before the wedding of Charlie and Emma (Pattinson and Zendaya), talking about “The worst thing you ever did.” Three of the four have some pretty wicked stories — Mike (Mamoudou Athie), for instance, offers that he used his ex-girlfriend as a human shield when he was attacked by a menacing dog. Rachel (Alana Haim) offers that, when she was younger, she freaked out and locked a possibly mentally disabled kid in a closet, prompting a full search party by his parents.

But Emma? She reveals that when she was 15, she planned — and nearly executed — a school shooting. It’s so outrageous that the other three don’t immediately believe her, but once they finally acknowledge that she’s telling the truth, it changes their entire perception of her, especially Charlie’s.

But Charlie is about to marry her, and the wedding is so far along in the process, and there are still so many things to do, that he never really gets a chance to properly process this new information. And that’s what Borgli does so well: He prevents the couple from finding some innocent explanation for it. Charlie, a museum curator, is already the kind of guy who obsesses over small things, and this just gets inside his head and eats him alive. Is this lovely, kind, and empathetic woman he’s about to marry a psychopath, actually?

And The Drama makes us reckon with it: Would we marry someone who, 15 years ago in a different life and a different state of mind, contemplated a school shooting? Does that kind of predilection ever actually go away? Or maybe that’s just a common fantasy among American school children — a distinction not lost on Charlie, who is British.

As Charlie tries to work through it, he does some increasingly unhinged things, including — completely out of character — almost sleeping with a co-worker out of sheer desperation. That revelation actually comes out after the wedding — during the dinner — when the co-worker’s boyfriend beats the holy hell out of Charlie, completely ruining what was already a difficult, awkward, and psychologically traumatic day.

But does it ruin the relationships? The ending leaves open the real possibility that this couple is going to make it despite everything, though I imagine that — after Emma’s secret and Charlie’s sexually inappropriate behavior have both detonated in front of their closest friends and family — nothing will ever be quite the same for them. But maybe, with everything in their lives so irretrievably f**ked, it’s better to face it together than alone.

The Drama hits PVOD on May 5th. Spoilers or not, I can’t recommend it enough.