The Drama: Where is the problem?

After Hurlevent and Marty Supreme, comes the new creature born from the fertile soil of American independent cinema: The Drama – a creature with two hyper famous heads, Zendaya on one side, and Robert Pattinson on the other. We first saw a photo that looked like it was taken with a bad camera phone of their two faces, red eyes and silly smiles, then a poster where they appeared dressed in a suit and wedding dress – coincidentally, rumors about Zendaya’s marriage to Tom Holland were circulating at the time. And then a trailer, with subtle images showing a distressed face, mud on white satin, blood on a torn bowtie: The Drama promised us a secret, and a rift in the portrait of the perfect little couple.

Kristoffer Borgli’s film was released on Wednesday, and after all the hype, it is disappointing, but more importantly, it fits into a reservoir now populated by so-called auteur films that think they are clever and subversive, but upon closer examination, they don’t offer much new and quickly retreat to safe narrative structures and motifs. This is what I call “offensive”, but clearly it’s becoming “unfortunate” – films about jerks, and I mean this word less as an insult – that’s not the idea or intention – but as a qualification that the authors themselves could claim.

In many ways, The Drama is similar to Snow Therapy, as it apparently presents itself as a small moral fable combined with dark comedy. We are in the American urban bourgeoisie, Charlie is getting ready to marry Emma, they have a DJ, a dance teacher, mushroom risotto, but a few days before, a bit drunk with their witnesses, they engage in a truth or dare game at such moments: they each have to say the worst thing they’ve ever done. Everyone tells their story, it’s quite harmless, until it’s Emma’s turn.

I won’t spoil the surprise on which the promotional campaign rests, I’ll just say that it’s actually quite weak, and the great evil that is supposed to occur at that moment and shake everyone up deflates like a failed soufflé. Therefore, the loud cries and anxiety that this revelation provokes, especially in the fiancé, who is visibly shaken, seem excessive and not very credible: is the film heading towards a satire of American high society, its values, and its hypocrisy? Besides, it wouldn’t be very exciting – unlike the famous jerk films, cynical and moralizing while enjoying their own ignominy, that’s not really the case with The Drama: ultimately, a rather cute film that, while pushing the boundaries of romantic comedy, ultimately relies on its most common mechanisms to function, and quickly abandons cruelty, horror, or fantasy.

From this perspective, I thought of another film recently released on platforms that is interesting, also American, called Materialists, which starts as a sharp satire of the American love economy, described as a market where women and men are bought and sold, but ends in the most blatant mediocrity: like a journey from the reverse, from the second degree to the first, from lucidity to mystification. Here are two films that claim to understand something about couples, but they scare themselves and ultimately fall into a strange blindness.

[Context: The article discusses the release of a film titled “The Drama” after generating hype with its cast and promotional campaign. It compares the film to others in the same genre, analyzing their narrative structures and themes.] [Fact Check: Check for accuracy regarding the film’s release and reception, as well as the comparisons made with other films in the article.]