‘The Drama’ Puts Your Moral Virtue to the Test

What makes The Drama curiously unique viewing, is also what makes it a difficult watch.

Key points:

The Drama explores the tension between thoughts and actions through a relationship tested by a hidden past.

Strong performances from Robert Pattinson and Zendaya bring emotional depth to a confronting and unexpected storyline.

The film raises moral and spiritual questions, echoing biblical teaching about the condition of the heart and human brokenness.

Starring Robert Pattinson (The Batman, Tenet) and Zendaya (Dune, Challengers), The Drama is about Charlie and Emma, a newly engaged couple whose relationship falls of the rails just days before their wedding when Emma reveals an untold secret about her past.

Charlie – and Emma’s friends – have to decide whether the wedding should go ahead, and whether or not Emma’s revelation is really that bad.

Not much can be said about the plot without spoiling the experience, but The Drama is reminiscent of Pattinson’s 2010 outing in Remember Me. Where it used romantic tragedy to explore the backstory of lives lost in September 11, The Drama uses wedding chaos to confront a painful cultural truth.

It’s the nature of Emma’s secret, and how it touches on a visceral social trigger, that some suggest should come with a warning and others celebrate for being completely unexpected.

Part of the surprise works by casting Robert Pattinson and Zendaya as the leads. They have the likeable whimsy of a young couple in love, completely at ease with each other, but credibly switch into the characteristics of mature adults handling the moral complexity before them.

One of the most profound questions Charlie and Emma wrestle with explores the distinction between our thoughts and actions.

If I, for instance, think about robbing a bank, am I as bad as someone who actually does rob one? What if the only difference between me and them is not my virtue, but that I happened to have self-discipline that day?

Interestingly, Jesus sets a pretty high standard for this debate.

In Matthew 5 during the Sermon on the Mount, He famously says of murder that mere anger – without violence – is enough to deserve judgement, and that lustful thoughts are enough to reap the consequences of committing adultery.

Jesus isn’t trying to make us feel horribly delinquent, but to understand how high a price He paid to secure our right-standing with God. Righteousness in His eyes isn’t achievable through our own efforts. We all fall short of this standard.

The Drama and the conversation it prompts is thoughtful and well executed, but viewing should be reserved for mature audiences who can handle a potentially jarring twist.

The Drama is in cinemas April 2 and rated MA15+.