
There are spoilers for The Drama below, which you know because you clicked on this.
There’s a plot twist in The Drama that, unless spoiled, you could never see coming in a million years. It’s the most bonkers heel-turn I’ve ever experienced in a romantic comedy, and watching them is my job.
The film follows Charlie (Robert Pattinson) and Emma (Zendaya) in the days leading up to their wedding. Over drinks with friends, they start discussing the worst thing they’ve ever done. Emma’s answer leaves her friends — and her future groom — aghast.
That’s all in the trailer. What’s not in the trailer is the fact that this “plot twist” happens pretty much immediately and impacts the entire tone of the movie going forward.
Since I got to screen the film early, I’ve been thinking nonstop about the twist, letting it fester in the incubator of my mind with no one else to discuss it with. I’m going to spoil it now for anyone interested. This is your last warning.
What’s the plot twist in ‘The Drama’?
Emma confesses that, as a teenager, she planned and nearly carried out a school shooting. Like, she didn’t just think about it. She practiced shooting, recorded videos and plotted to kill her classmates — but was at the last minute interrupted by another nearby shooting that stole her thunder. She was then swept into the current of gun control activism, which gave her a new purpose in life and convinced her not to become a mass murderer.
That’s right — we’re meant to believe that this character played by America’s sweetheart Zendaya was one of the foulest things a person could be. For the rest of the film, Charlie struggles to process this information. Frankly, so did I.

Another couple — Charlie’s best man, Mike (Mamoudou Athie), and Emma’s maid of honor, Rachel (Alana Haim) — are also there for the big reveal. Rachel is friendship-endingly appalled, and Mike stands by his wife, for the most part, pleading with Charlie not to go through with the wedding.
I’ll be honest, I read about the twist months ago in a completely random and sparsely upvoted Reddit thread. At the time, I thought, There’s no way that’s actually the twist. It’s too insane. But it was, in fact, the twist. My initial incredulity allowed me to be doubly shocked by the reveal, which I recommend highly as a truly one-of-a-kind theatrical experience, though if you’re reading this, you’re too late.
Wait … this is a romantic comedy?
In my opinion, yes — but know that the romance is as dark as the comedy. Choosing to love someone despite their worst mistake is awfully romantic. Is it morally good? That’s for you and your baffled friends to debate.

According to writer-director Kristoffer Borgli, “however you react is valid.”
“It’s, like, what you want to react, how you feel, it’s all OK. You’re probably right. You decide what it is for you. You can laugh, you can cry. You can leave the theater if you want to,” he declared during the film’s Los Angeles premiere on March 17.
Zendaya said on the March 16 episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live! that it's hard to categorize the film as just one genre, though she said drama might be fitting.
“Everybody has their own feelings leaving the theater, especially with the big twist and there’s so many conversations that are had after you watch it,” she said. “It’s just one of those things, like, I really hope that people don’t spoil it for each other so they’re allowed to go into it just unknowing and really experience the drama.”
Sorry, Zendaya.
How are people responding to this?
Critics have mostly liked it. Its rating on Rotten Tomatoes keeps fluctuating between 80% and 85%.
The shock of the reveal is the point, and as David Erlich writes for IndieWire, “It’s rare to see a mainstream film so eager to stick out its tongue and lick one of the last genuine third rails of American discourse.”
The juxtaposition of the discourse about school shootings — several of which have already taken place this year in the U.S. — alongside wedding planning sheds light on how silly it is that we stress so much about getting the public’s approval for love.
That said, when the goal is edginess, you’re going to offend some people — and offend it did.
The Daily Beast’s Nick Schager calls the film a “torturous tone-deaf joke that won’t end.” The Boston Globe’s Odie Henderson writes that the twist is a “repugnant, tasteless surprise” that will make you “wonder what the hell the studio was thinking.”
Tom Mauser, whose son, Daniel, was murdered in the Columbine massacre in 1999, told TMZ he thinks the movie’s twist is “awful.”
More reactions are sure to roll in as it becomes less gauche to post about spoilers.
So wait, what happens in the end?
They go through with the ceremony, but the increasingly unhinged behavior that Charlie exhibits leading up to the wedding — including briefly attempting to cheat on Emma with a coworker — comes to a head at the reception. He gives an awkward and offensive speech, gets punched by his coworker’s boyfriend and pandemonium ensues.
And yet, somehow, the movie still ends on a hopeful note: Charlie and Emma run into each other at the grubby diner they had considered grabbing a bite at after their nuptials before all hell broke loose. They reintroduce themselves.
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