From the moment the first trailer for A24’s The Drama dropped—and honestly, even before that—the internet was abuzz with rumors and speculation about the film’s big twist. The pitch-black comedy from Norwegian director Kristoffer Borgli stars Zendaya and Robert Pattinson as Emma and Charlie, a Boston couple preparing for their wedding. When Emma and Charlie are at a food-and-wine tasting with their best friends, Rachel (Alana Haim) and Mike (Mamoudou Athie), the couples play a game where each person admits the worst thing they’ve ever done. It’s all in good fun until it becomes Emma’s turn, during which she admits to something so wild, so seemingly unforgivable, that she sends the entire outing, the wedding, and potentially her relationship into disarray.
Instantly, there was only one question on everyone’s mind: What the hell did Emma do? Fans on Reddit feverishly speculated: Did Emma stalk Charlie before they started dating? Was infidelity involved? Nobody online knew for sure until the publication of a TMZ story that—intentionally or not—essentially spoiled the film, launching a whole new cycle of conversation about The Drama. Then, to make matters even murkier, The Hollywood Reporter brought attention to a resurfaced 2012 essay in which an adult Borgli detailed a past romantic relationship with a teenager. It’s enough controversy to overshadow the film itself, even if it is called The Drama.
So: What did TMZ publish? What did Borgli say? And again: What did Emma do?! Now that the film is officially out—it hit theaters April 3—we can finally break it all down. (If you couldn’t tell, spoilers for The Drama follow.)
First: the actual plot twist, which comes fairly early in The Drama’s run time. Wine-drunk and in the company of her closest confidants, Zendaya’s character timidly shares that when she was a lonely, bullied teenager in Baton Rouge, she planned, but did not follow through with, a school shooting. Emma’s shocking admission rattles the entire wedding party, particularly Haim’s Rachel, whose cousin was left paralyzed by an act of gun violence. The rest of the film deals with the fallout from her confession.
This plot twist remained mostly under wraps in the months leading up to The Drama’s premiere. In a move somewhat at odds with the content of the film, A24 spent weeks marketing The Drama as more of a romantic comedy, making the film seem like something in the vein of last spring’s Materialists (which itself can only tenuously be described as a rom-com). Zendaya and Pattinson posed as their characters for a fake wedding announcement that appeared in The Boston Globe; Zendaya’s own engagement to Tom Holland was a meta element frequently mentioned on the press tour, with the star often decked out in dazzling white and channeling “something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue” on various red carpets.
But then, on March 24, TMZ ran an article with this headline: “Zendaya’s ‘The Drama’ Condemned by Parent of Columbine Victim.” That parent was Tom Mauser, who lost his son, Daniel, in the 1999 mass shooting at Colorado’s Columbine High School. According to TMZ, Mauser was “disgusted” by The Drama’s “awful” plot twist and felt particularly incensed after seeing Zendaya supposedly make light of the twist on Jimmy Kimmel Live! (Zendaya never alluded to gun violence during that conversation, only stating that the movie is an amalgam of genres, including romantic comedy and drama. “Everybody has their own kind of feelings leaving the theater, especially with the big twist,” she said. “Those conversations can go many ways.”) Mauser told TMZ that, ultimately, he believes Borgli’s movie “humanizes” a potential school shooter and, in turn, “normalizes” mass shootings. (Note: No mass shooting is actually depicted in the film.)
