A couple of nights before their wedding, a reluctant bride and groom engage in a boozy game of “truth” with their best man and maid of honour. They finish dining in the fussily formal room—lit by wall-mounted, double lanterns spaced at equal distances along the wood-panelling—where the wedding banquet is to be held. A single central table is set with an innocent white tablecloth. The couples sit on opposite sides. Three polished glasses decorate each place-setting. The private chef has demonstrated the menu—mushroom risotto—for Saturday. Can they taste some more wine? The game begins. The camera tightens on their faces. Bride Emma shares last. She reveals the worst thing she’s ever done. Silence. All talk at once. The maid of honour’s body language begs the groom—Call it off. “The Drama” (A24), showing now at the Montrose Playhouse, pivots on this one perfect scene. As the room shrinks to the table, the story compresses into one question: will the wedding go ahead?
A half-hour earlier, the efficient opening sequence is the portent for what will follow. Charlie, played by Robert Pattinson, spots a woman in a coffee shop. What’s the best way to approach her? Emma, played by Zendaya, leaves her window seat for a moment. He dashes over, snaps a picture of the cover of her novel, crams the plot online, and hams his way into her life. Charlie is one of those soft-spoken, brainy types who works in an art gallery. He can sneak her inside after dark (except he can’t—the intruder alarm is triggered). This is all O.K. with the audience; the setup implies a trivial rom-com, and the end (love, marriage, and happily-ever-after) justifies the means. Likeable Charlie’s motivation is good so what’s the problem?
But, as in the kind of staged drama that the Playhouse broadcasts from “NTLive” from time to time, after the “truth” moment they cannot start over; behaving “normally” makes things worse. Perhaps they could ratchet down the pressure with a less showy first dance? Their teacher refuses to change tack. “It’s a wedding,” she says. “It’s performative by nature.” Their photographer appears. “I’ll shoot you first,” she says. “I’ll send you the shot list and you let me know if you wanna add anything.” Charlie can’t focus. “Let’s do a little warm up,” the photographer, Little Miss Motivator, says. “Emma, what’s your favourite thing about Charlie?” “Open-minded” is amongst the qualities she lists. “Hold those thoughts and we’re going to send them into the camera!” Even their florist picks up on the strangely distracted energy. “Did you even like the lilies?” Emma asks Charlie. “I can call [the florist] back if you didn’t.” These three clever cameos coil the suspense onto a wedding that the audience isn’t sure will proceed.
Motivation and deception and judgmentalism and hypocrisy are the themes in “The Drama.” “Why are you acting like you’ve never done anything bad?” Rachel, the maid of honour, asks. “Give us something good!” The taut screenplay is heavy on fragments, which indicate nervousness and match the way we speak in the twenty-twenties. “How can someone, like…” Charlie says. No need to complete the sentence. Fusing the spoken fragments with the quick flash of a mobile phone (to message, usually) convinces us that we would behave like them. The score by Daniel Pemberton is heavy on flutes and registers mainly in the pit of the stomach. Fretful Charlie is accompanied by a musical fragment, a couplet, ‘Dee-dum.” Later Mr Pemberton adds a third note, ‘Dee-dum/Dum’ and finally the flute explodes into continuous notes when Emma has a panic attack in a toilet. The flute even plays above more solid music which, like the banquet hall, is pushed to the back of the sensory experience. The camera unsteadies as the fragments rearrange in the wrong order, misunderstandings multiply and accusations fly. Were there clues—
“Do you hate me,” Emma asks the next day, trying to scavenge their relationship. “No, just, I mean, was it true?” Charlie says (the “I mean” is compressed). “So you were just never going to tell me?” His trembly face reveals his predicament. “I don’t want you to look at me differently,” Emma says. “I love you.” The conversation turns to someone they can blame. “It’s just Rachel. She’s overreacting like she always does,” Charlie says. “I think it’s important to talk,” he says. “Yeah…and we did,” Emma says. “We did, yeah.” “And we’re ok, right?” This scene is under-lit as they are talking in bed—we are not supposed to be convinced. Yet in some strange way he does feel closer to her: he defends her. “I’m sure there’s thousands of people” who have done the same. “They just wouldn’t tell anyone.” After a reference to Freud—“How do you know if it’s relevant or not if you haven’t analysed it?”—he intellectualises. “Basically, Emma had to witness her best friend getting…it’s kind of interesting in a way.” “Interesting?” Rachel says, her face cold and hostile. “It’s not interesting, Charlie, it’s awful.” The Biblical parable says, “Hypocrite! First take the log out of your own eye.” Charlie cannot bury his own original sin. “I didn’t read the book,” he says. “That’s weird,” Emma says, “You’re just a weird little British freak.”
Wandering downstairs to enjoy a second Maison Dieu coffee after the noon matinée, my mind untangled the “truth” scene, a masterclass in building suspense. The film expects us to judge how bad is bad. Emma’s confession muddles Charlie. His face frantic, he stares at her and rubs his hands through his hair and laughs. “Are you being serious?” he says. “Is this, like, a real thing?” Zendaya reflects Mr Pattinson. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m drunk.” In a breathtaking scene later he rehashes the disastrous game, this time with a work colleague. “What would you do if you found out that your boyfriend had…” Charlie asks. “And he made you believe beyond a doubt that he’s changed?”
Adam Poole
3rd April 2026
If you are interested in viewing this screening, please book your tickets here
