Disclaimer: This article contains spoilers for “The Drama” (2026).
Content warning: This article contains discussions of gun violence.
The most recent A24 film, “The Drama” (2026), a romantic comedy written and directed by Kristoffer Borgli, features notable co-stars Zendaya and Robert Pattinson. After a pre-wedding dinner, a group of friends plays a game revealing the worst thing they’ve ever done, leading Emma (Zendaya) to reveal a shocking incident from her past. It’s a bombshell to everyone — especially her fiancé Charlie (Pattinson) — when Emma nervously admits she had planned a mass shooting when she was a teenager. This revelation becomes the hurdle blocking their path to marriage as both try their hardest to work through it.
While the film includes comedic moments that attempt to lighten the mood, mass shootings are a deeply serious and traumatic reality that cannot easily be separated from their impact. For many viewers, especially survivors and those directly affected, this portrayal may feel unsettling or even insensitive. Mia Tretta, a gun violence victim and advocate, has criticized the film for not fully treating the subject with the seriousness it deserves. This tension ultimately complicates the film’s central question: Does unconditional love truly exist when the past carries such real and lasting weight?
Romance movies tend to be relatively tame in terms of the relationship conflicts characters face, such as acts of infidelity, lack of commitment, incompatibility and more. However, this film takes a more controversial approach by using mass shootings as a narrative device to challenge the idea of unconditional love. Framing such a serious topic in this way may raise ethical and interpretive questions.
At first, Emma’s confession that she planned a mass shooting when she was 15 helps propel the film forward and improves the pacing compared to the beginning of the movie. However, mass shootings are a highly visible and deeply sensitive issue, especially in the United States, and one that is profoundly triggering for victims and observers alike.
By using such a deeply serious and traumatic issue as a narrative device, the film risks minimizing the real-world impact that mass shootings have on individuals and communities. While the extremity of the situation strengthens the film’s examination of the limits of love, it also makes that exploration more uncomfortable, as the audience is forced to reconcile a fictional relationship with a reality that carries lasting consequences.
After the confession, Charlie presses Emma about her motivation for planning such an immoral act during her teenage years. While he still wants to marry her, he finds it difficult to move past the revelation. If your partner told you that they had once considered killing their classmates, it would reasonably raise questions about their state of mind and whether those thoughts are still present even after so much time has passed. Charlie experiences similar doubts and desperately seeks reassurance that marrying Emma will not be a grave mistake, turning what once seemed like unconditional love into one contingent on whether Emma can convince him that she has truly changed, a task that feels nearly impossible.
Later, Charlie’s turmoil leads him to commit an act of infidelity and cause chaos at their wedding. He spends a significant portion of the film trying to cope with the information while also attempting to place himself on equal moral footing by committing a wrongdoing that he feels can be compared to Emma’s past. In the end, we are left with a cliffhanger of sorts, with both characters reintroducing themselves after their disastrous wedding brought on by Charlie’s actions, as he is still trying to cope with Emma’s confession. In the final scene, Emma asking for Charlie’s name signals a tentative attempt to start over and possibly continue their partnership.
Once the film ends, the question becomes whether the use of a mass shooting as a narrative device was effective and worthwhile in service to its themes; ultimately, it was not. Emma’s motivation for planning the attack is left vague and underdeveloped, making it difficult to fully understand or evaluate her growth. Additionally, the film does not clearly show whether she has taken meaningful steps toward accountability, such as therapy or genuine reflection, which weakens the foundation of Charlie’s decision to continue the relationship. Even the film’s promotional rollout largely avoids engaging with the real-world gravity of gun violence, instead focusing on relationship-based discussions rather than advocacy or awareness. This lack of depth both on- and off-screen highlights how the film introduces serious issues without fully committing to its weight.
While “The Drama” succeeds in pushing the limits of devotion, it ultimately leaves its central question unresolved. Rather than demonstrating the strength of unconditional love, the film suggests that love without full understanding, accountability and growth may not be unconditional at all.
