What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done? You know, that niggling little rat chewing on the back of your synapses, sparking flashes of queasy panic. Or, worse still, what happens if someone you love isn’t distressed by their most questionable actions? That’s the curly conundrum behind the Zendaya and Robert Pattinson-led dark comedy The Drama.
Zendaya plays Emma, a Boston-based book publisher happily engaged to be married to Pattinson’s geekily charming Charlie, a museum director from England. It’s a few days away from their nuptials and they still haven’t locked in the menu, much to the venue manager’s annoyance. Instead, they’re taking the piss, guzzling a tonne of organic wines ‘for consideration’ alongside besties Rachel (Alana Haim) and Mike (Mamoudou Athie).
Which is when that curly question pops up: what’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?
Anxiety inducing cinema – quick links
Excruciating cinema
Mike is dragged, reluctantly, to reveal his dubious deed, agreeing only on the condition that Rachel reciprocates. She’s cajoled into it, after attempting to back out, then it’s Charlie’s turn. Of the three, Rachel’s revelation is the most eyebrow-raising.
Until, that is, Emma drunkenly relays her mic drop moment of being the worst person in the world.
Trust me, you should go into The Drama as uninformed as you can. But suffice it to say that Emma’s confession is an almighty humdinger that gets to the sickly heart of the United States. One that twists what appears to be a sassy romantic comedy right out of shape, bent into an anxiety-inducing WTF of a film.
In other words, the sort of ‘so wrong’ my twisted soul can’t get enough of, cackling while feeling really bad.
Watch The Drama trailer
What we watch when we’re sick of ourselves
Written and directed by Kristoffer Borgli, the Norwegian filmmaker behind The Drama knows a thing or two about mining excruciating comedy from people behaving badly.
His Norwegian language debut, Sick of Myself, centres on a barista, Signe (Kristine Kujath Thorp), who is so consumed with jealousy over the sudden success of her admittedly douchey artist boyfriend, Thomas (Eirik Sæther), that she mainlines illegally sourced, recalled meds that bring on a severe skin condition for sympathy.
Borgli’s second feature, Dream Scenario, harnesses Nic Cage’s latter-day career penchant for portraying characters who lose their shit in comically alarming ways. He casts The Surfer star as Paul, a decidedly normcore biology professor who suddenly becomes infamous worldwide for appearing in folks’ dreams. But when those dreams spiral into nightmarish visions, his real-life behaviour escalates violently, too.
Both made me squeal while covering my eyes. As does The Drama, joining an acerbically hilarious lineage of likeminded films championed by the likes of an Oscar-nominated Rose Byrne’s as Linda, the exasperated mum unravelling in If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.
There’s something to be said for subversive humour that pushes our buttons so hard they pop out the other side. The Drama intrigues in that Emma’s ‘crime’ is one of thought only. Of what she planned to do, as a troubled teen, but ultimately did not follow through.
And yet, even revealing her troubling innermost thoughts of years gone by is enough to wig out Charlie, transforming their every conversation into an emotional minefield, as their best friends scramble in the trenches. It’s awfully good to witness.
The very worst moment
The same can be said of observing Byrne’s increasingly harried Linda rail against the patriarchy in writer/director Mary Bronstein’s If I Had Legs I’d Kick You. It’s a travesty upheld not only by her boundary-blurring male colleague (Conan O’Brien) or her wheedling husband (Christian Slater), but also by other women whose internalised misogyny bleeds.
It’s also there in the very bad night and crushing day job of Griffin Dunne’s Paul in the classic Martin Scorsese misadventure, After Hours, with its slow dance to Peggy Lee’s Is That All There Is? Or the crushing drain of bad debts hopelessly outrun by Adam Sandler’s Howard in the Safdie brothers’ Uncut Gems.
There’s the whirlwind omnishambles that consumes Charli XCX in Aidan Zamiri’s The Moment, a mockumentary about the absurdity of celebrity and the parasocial toxicity of social media-driven fandom. Or Ari Aster’s Eddington, a film so spot-on about the multifaceted fracturing of American society that many Stateside critics seemed unable to look in that broken mirror.
But why on this warmongering earth would we want to lean into the worst side of ourselves, snort-laughing at comedy that’s blacker than the depth of night?
Because gallows humour cuts the head off the horror, offering us some small modicum of control. A release valve through which we can channel our greatest fears and worst mistakes, the least cool versions of ourselves.
Astonishingly, we find comfort in revelling at the far-out comic misfortune of others simply because it is not happening to us. Or am I just a sick puppy?
Maybe this type of cinema is the worst thing filmmakers have ever done. Your mileage may vary, but for me, Borgli’s The Drama, expertly commanded by Zendaya and Pattinson sliding along the knife’s edge, is the moment we find ourselves mired in.
