My oh my, I feel as if someone must ask Kristoffer Borgli how he is doing. As the director of “The Drama,” he has created such an entertaining and psychological adventure. The movie stars Zendaya as Emma Harwood and Robert Pattinson as Charlie Thompson.
Spoiler alert–it’s time for me to give some context before we diagnose the level of discomfort within this movie. Emma and Charlie are engaged.
At a dinner with friends, they each decide to share the worst thing they have ever done. Everyone is drunk, brushing off their “mistakes” or bad decisions, laughing it all away. That is, until Emma shares.
Vulnerable, but comfortable enough to, she shares that when she was younger, she had the idea to commit a mass shooting at her high school.
She didn’t just think it through; she had a full plan she was ready to execute, until someone committed a shooting before she could.
This ultimately stopped her, not her morals, values or any sense of compassion. Just the simple act of it being done before she could.
Afterwards, shockingly, she ended up protesting against gun violence and changed her ways as a human being, but a troubled human being.
It’s obvious that growth and a change of heart took place; however, upon hearing that someone wanted to perform a shooting within a school, and having a whole plan to do so, it can be a hard pill to swallow.
Along with being troubled, she also had a hard homelife, with parents who were never home and never paid attention to her. The only validation she had in her life, the only words spoken over her, would be the thoughts of her peers from school. Therefore, furthering her hatred towards the school considering most were rude and belittling towards her.
Now time for my thoughts. When Emma first tells Charlie her secret, he drunkenly laughs. Not taking it seriously, but then, slowly, realizes how serious she is. The dinner ends abruptly, and the two are too intoxicated to discuss the situation any further.
There’s a level of shock presented when told such information, yet if I’m allowed, I’d like to argue it. Yes, Emma could have committed a horrible act. One so horrible that I would go so far as to say she would be “psychotic,” as she is called multiple times throughout the movie.
Yet, she didn’t. I think this is so easily passed up and not considered enough.
You’re looking at a high school girl, going through depression, self-isolation and a deteriorating system of self-esteem. Her mind isn’t fully developed, and it seems like the only way to escape is to end those enhancing her suffering. This being the only option seems like such an important detail that Borgli includes: gun violence.
It’s so prominent in America; it’s almost impossible not to hear about a school shooting. It’s not a shocking idea anymore; it actually hurts me to write this, but it’s common. That’s what Borgli is alluding to. This is a very serious topic; people aren’t going to always watch a movie about school shootings, but they’ll watch a movie about an engaged couple struggling right before their marriage. And that is how Borgli ties us into such deep details.
Things we can’t escape, things that should be making us uncomfortable but we slap Zendaya and Pattinson into place so that we can cover that discomfort up. Yet, there is still an unsettling feeling that resides at the bottom of your gut.
I find it very intriguing how we’ve become surrounded by such a deep topic within this movie, yet the film is more about the couple rather than the actual secret, or so we assume at least.
This brings me to a further point, how Charlie and Emma handle their relationship after this secret is released into the atmosphere. Charlie seems to fully lose his mind, whilst Emma is struggling so hard to piece everything back together. I truly believe it was hard for Emma to share, and I think she carries a type of weight that isn’t fully seen throughout the movie through Charlie’s lack of support within the relationship.
On the other hand, Charlie is deeply disturbed by the confession. I think the most beautiful way this is shown is when he delivers a quote from Sigmund Freud to Emma, “Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways.”
He says this to Emma in hopes that she’ll confess more about the secret, so that he can puzzle a way to justify her thoughts and actions. Still, she gives nothing. She has already stated all the facts and there’s nothing more to it.
Through his obsessive attempts at trying to find some sort of diagnosis for Emma, Thompson throws himself into this pit of buried emotions he refuses to express. Instead, he points them towards Emma, thinking that the issue resides with her.
This is the point where Charlie completely unravels. So much so that we see him cheat on Emma, lie and arguably lose his own morals.
There’s a tension within him that so desperately wants to side against Emma. There’s thoughts of knowing what she did wasn’t okay, but this act of “love,” if that’s what you want to call it, forces him to try and make everything normal in a sense. So, he ignores what he’s truly feeling in order to fix something that was never necessarily broken, but definitely needed mending.
As an audience member, this movie replayed over and over in my head, days on end. I kept trying to pick a side. Emma deserved grace and forgiveness. She never committed to the action. Then the question of “why” comes into place, and I find myself circling around thoughts in the same way Charlie does.
I want to call Emma “psychotic” and I want to convince Charlie to leave her. “Call the wedding off!” is what someone should’ve screamed. Yet, Emma has changed so drastically, and who am I to judge her for something she decided at around 16?
Yes, a mass shooting is a giant issue that definitely needs to be discussed, however, is it worth being held over Emma’s head for the rest of her life? At what point do we stop forgiving people, stop extending mercy?
“The Drama” was definitely dramatic. So, for those who watched, and watched with intent, I know your minds must be puzzled as well, wondering who was right and who was wrong in the whole situation.
And to that, I must argue that you have to stop wondering. The world is too complex for black and white, as Borgli has shown, and we must face the discomfort of being okay with that.