A romance?
I did not watch any trailers before going to the theater to watch this film. All I knew was that Zendaya and Robert Pattinson were the stars, and being my favorite actress and actor, I wanted to go. Unfortunately, I did believe it was a romance, and believed my years-long streak of avoiding the genre was coming to a close.
What did unfold was said streak continuing. The Drama (2026) lives up to its title, being a dramatic two hours that knows what it wishes to do. From the jump, these two lovebirds are thrown for a loop, without much of a “romance” being displayed to us as an audience.
Robert’s character of Charlie meets Zendaya’s Emma in a coffee shop in New York City. As she reads a book, Charlie comes up to her, acting as if he has read the book despite that not being the case. This sets the tone for what is to come in their relationship.
Fast-forwarding a few years, the two are set to get married. At a dinner with a couple who are clearly meant to have initially been friends with Charlie, the four share the worst things they have ever done. Charlie struggles, not being able to recall anything. However, Emma admits to planning a school shooting when she was 15.
Despite the fact that it has been well over a decade, Rachel, the woman of the other couple, freaks out and berates Emma for this. Emma explains that she never truly went through with it, but a fight ensues, and the movie is off to a thunderous start.
The journey to the wedding day is a “dramatic” one. Charlie can not stop envisioning Emma as the fifteen-year-old who wanted to shoot up her school, and Emma doesn’t know what to do about it outside of explaining that she has changed.
The two struggle with smiling during their practice photos, and Charlie is told by his friends to call off the wedding. Not having someone to talk to who doesn’t have an opinion, he decides to talk to his co-worker, Misha, about what she would do if she found out her significant other ever planned to shoot up a school.
Misha responds by saying that she would call them a psychopath, and Charlie freaks out. Somehow, the two end up kissing, almost getting to the point of engaging in something more.
Now comes the wedding day. Charlie seems to have come to terms with what Emma was going to do many years ago, and the ceremony goes as planned. Emma ends up going to the bathroom at some point, where she overhears people talking about her past. Not knowing how anyone would know outside of the four of them that were at dinner the night she admitted to it, she confronts who she hears, and it’s Misha.
She returns to the table, where she tells Charlie that they need to talk. They go into another room, where she asks Charlie if he told anyone, and he says no. Emma then goes and brings Misha into the room to ask who told her, where she exposes the fact that she and Charlie made out. Completely blindsided, Emma breaks down, but the wedding still continues.
During Charlie’s speech, he, for some reason, admits to the fact that he made out with Misha, and she tells her husband that it was nonconsensual, leading to Charlie getting his ass beat.
We cut to Charlie in his apartment, bloodied to a pulp. Still caring for Emma and realizing the wrong he did, he tries to reach out to her to see if she is okay. He sets out for a 24/7 diner that the couple talked about going to after their wedding.
While waiting for his food in his now red tuxedo, Emma enters the diner in her muddied wedding dress. She sits down at the table, introducing herself to Charlie for the first time, and he does the same.
Jessica and I’s feelings on the movie differ, which is unsurprising. I had open expectations for how it was going to go, but she understandably believed that this was going to be more of a prototypical romance movie, not the extreme drama that ensued. Her review follows below.
“Going into this movie, I was intrigued because I like Zendaya and Robert Pattinson as actors, especially Zendaya, because my boyfriend and I have been into Euphoria, and I loved her growing up on Disney Channel.
I watched the trailer, and I didn’t get much out of it, which I think was a good thing because a lot of trailers say too much and spoil a lot of what movies are about. I just knew that Zendaya and Robert were supposed to be a couple, and there was some sort of wedding happening.
As it progressed, I kind of felt bored. I think I had high expectations for both of them because I’ve seen both of them in really good roles, and I know they’re both good actors, but I think also I’ve been accustomed to watching thrillers, action, and crazy zombie movies together. So when it is some sort of romance that’s going really slow, and not much is happening, it kind of threw me off.
Finally, when the wedding scene came, that was kind of when I got into it a little bit more, which is unfortunate because the wedding scene was the last 30 minutes left of the movie. I did enjoy that part because there was a lot of drama going on, but before that, I just felt really bored.
With romances, I always expect this really loving couple, a couple that I idolize. But in this instance, Robert’s character was having second thoughts about Zendaya‘s character and wanting to be with her because of a whole thing that happened in her past. There was nothing really lovey-dovey about it and so that too kind of was disappointing for me because that’s what I look for in romance; either some sort of really loving factor or something that will make me cry and I really didn’t get either out of this movie so I would give it like a 1.5 out of 5. I’m really disappointed that I don’t like the movie.”
Personally, I would rate the film 4 out of 5 stars, but I can fully admit that if the lead actors were not who they were, this likely would not be the case. The biggest strength of the film to me is who it is acted by, but also every character. I never felt like a line did not fit, or that a character was doing something they should not have. The script and those who carried it out did a great job.
I would recommend this movie to every couple, but sharing the knowledge that it is not going to be some lovey-dovey romance movie. However, and no shade to anyone that might not think it’s enough, I thought the title of the movie gives a pretty good idea of what is to come!
Jessica’s rating – ⭐1/2/ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Cyrus’ rating – ⭐⭐⭐⭐/⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Check out our previous review of The Iron Claw (2023)!