Peneflix MOVIE REVIEWS BY PENEFLIX
I accept defeat in my years’- long quest to eliminate the ubiquitous bastardization of the word “like”; 2024’s “The Real Pain”, Kieran Culkin (Academy Award for Supporting Actor) and Jesse Eisenberg in competition for most “likes” in a film, that would have been twenty minutes shorter if half of them would have been eliminated. In director Kristoffer Borgli’s “The Drama” two seasoned actors, Robert Pattinson and Zendaya portray a “like” divinely in love couple a week before their wedding; never experiencing the “Twilight” saga, have admired Pattinson’s climb into film notoriety and he, despite the “like” affliction is formidable as “Charlie”, an art curator passionately in love with “Emma” (Zendaya, a dazzling, comprehensive characterization). They are scripted for each other, all moves syncretical until during a “tasting” with her maid of honor “Rachel” (Alana Haim) and best man “Mike” (Mamoudou Athie) inebriated they confess the “worst thing they have ever done”; Emma shares her worst fantasy, never actualized. Explosive reaction from all parties, even the groom-to-be.
The drama shifts its focus to Charlie and the dilemma he faces in accepting the lethal fantasy of his beloved when she was a bullied fifteen-year-old; Emma, unchanged, is delightful, seemingly unfazed, but is eventually rattled by her fiancé’s befuddlement. Borgli’s success lies in allowing viewers to answer unnerving questions and how they would react in a similar situation. This is a twenty-first century movie of unquestioned racial diversity, females triumphing in the work force, partnerships evaluating its future. “The Drama” culminates at the wedding where predictable chaos prevails; it is occasionally hilarious, brutally dynamic, and positively humiliating before reason bests the horrific ugliness. There is intelligence lurking in the minds and hearts of the protagonists.
THREE STARS!!!
Peneflix
