REVIEW | ‘The Drama’ takes a shot at how we never forgive the people we cancel

The Drama

Rating: 5/5

In its origins, cancel culture was meant to hold people in power accountable with boycotts that would force fast food giants, celebrities and others to be accountable if they could not rectify the social wrongs they had done.

It was a move that took away the preceding acts of black balling and snubbing done by elites who could wipe out scores of people from opportunity based on their whims. Over time, the two have meshed and cancel culture exists as a shell of both. A broken yardstick with which society poorly attempts to direct a universal moral compass. It’s the same moral scramble that charges the chaotic decisions made by the couple Emma and Charlie in The Drama.

It stars Zendaya (Euphoria, Challengers) and Robert Pattinson (Twilight, The Lighthouse) as the betrothed, Alana Haim (One Battle After Another) as Rachel and Mamadou Attie (Uncorked) as Mikie, who instigate the question of what was the worst thing they’ve ever done.

In her response, Emma shares that she almost started a school shooting, which elicits a strong reaction from the group, especially Rachel and Charlie, who have a changed view of Emma. When this truth is revealed it changes the direction of the movie from a loving wedding story to a begrudging dip into Emma’s past.

While Charlie tries to explain her reasoning, there is an undertone that Emma was propelled by frustration at school and the glamourisation of guns in her youth. This is something even Charlie can’t escape when he stumbles on a book detailing 2000s-style women with guns in pinup style.

Charlie’s internal struggle spills into their relationship, leading him to lie about why Emma did it, and he is quick to fall apart in the arms of Misha (Hailey Gates of State of Undress fame), his assistant at work. Emma’s history with guns emasculates him to the point where he struggles to see beyond the initial humour he experienced when hearing her share the story for the first time.

Rachel’s anger plays a big part in this. As the source of the titular drama, her actions highlight the racial undertone behind Emma’s treatment. Because her cousin was the victim of her school shooting, she cannot find it in herself to forgive Emma’s behaviour. However, Charlie is quick to point out her contradictions, as she received sympathy from all of them after leaving a mentally disabled child trapped in a closet in a nearby forest. Rather than exercise similar sympathy, she throws fits around the group, refuses to meet deadlines for Emma’s job and uses passive-aggressive behaviour against the bride at the wedding. Emma makes fast judgments about the DJ at the wedding possibly smoking heroin in the street.

Rachel’s treatment of Emma evokes the same treatment that hindered Emma from making successful friendships in high school and resulted in the passive-aggressive bullying she would endure. This isolation plays a role in how Charlie tries to ask her out, but she is unable to hear his advances due to a loss of hearing in one ear. The latter issue plays a big role in how she is viewed as an ideal victim, with no-one ever asking what caused her loss of hearing. She reveals it was caused by gunshots when she fired practice rounds.

Finding agency and power through the gun, Emma’s shooting was derailed by another shooting at a nearby mall that would take the life of one of her schoolmates. This would radicalise her to be a valuable source of information for a group of students who stand up against gun violence, and where she would find her voice in debunking stereotypes around gun violence and protesting against them.

In its last few kicks (and punches) the movie forces the couple to face each other and their problematic truths and prejudices. While ideal victims are readily given sympathy due to biases we hold as a society, Emma exists under the cruel thumb of a society that cannot see her as an ideal penitent. Someone who society cannot forgive for her transgressions and is willing to accept as a wrongdoer due to her being primed in the position of innocence, especially as a differently abled biracial woman.

The Drama doesn’t seek to preach to the choir about violence in America, it simply extends the conversation to avenues we don’t feel comfortable with. In essence, it’s a movie that exists as a dramatic force that seeks to disrupt our views on who we throw our moral outrage towards.