Stubbornness goes all around in this film. It drips with reluctance to the point of being a tragedy. So tragic that it is funny. So funny that it is sad, and so sad that it is funny. The title is rather what the characters believe they are in, instead the audience knows it is a comedy-a comedy where you feel uncomfortable to laugh at sometimes. The characters in this will never learn from their mistakes and never learned their lesson. Doomed to a perpetual loop of dissatisfaction. And from that we have a comedy- and not a dark comedy, rather a sort of bleak comedy. A category that fits it better than anything else.  There is a dash of familiarity to Ari Aster’s film in this- like “Beau is Afraid” and “Eddington”. The characters have the same kind of flavor to them. It’s no wonder that he is an executive producer of this. 

“The Drama” has  Emma (Zendaya) and Charlie (Robert Pattinson) scheduling a wedding and reflecting on how they got there. Both of them have amassed some incredible flaws. In fact, even their friends Mike (Mamoudou Athie) and Rachel (Alana Haim) are deeply flawed as well. There are no good people in this film. Emma urged to be right all the time, and Charlie’s impossibility to say no to his impulses and urges and a compulsive liar. As the film moves along we know  there will never be a good outcome. All four are condemned to never learn their lesson, and that’s what makes it funny. 

“The Drama” works marvelously when it doesn’t feel like writing and it takes out when it does. The times when it feels natural is where it is most compelling  and rich, when it tries to be clever it feels forced. The editing is terrific and if not the best edited films of the year so far. It is what stands out the most in it.  The second best component is the acting. The performances are quite remarkable and convincing. Not just with Zendaya and Robert Pattinson, but the entire cast. 

Emma and Charlie are train wreck by themselves and even worse together and they know it and yet still persist to maintain and probably will because they cannot see their own flaws. 

If you are a fan of Ari Aster films, you will thoroughly enjoy this. If you come for a rom-com you are mistaken. “The Drama” wants to laugh at the self-inflicted misery each of the characters have imposed on themselves. With no desire to change- nor feel the need to. Emma will always have to be right and Charlie will always lie to her.. They are never going to change-nor ever be apart- and  it’s the audience’s problem to deal with it. 8.5/10