Drama: Can a Romcom Have a Plot Point About a School Shooting?

April 2026

 

Did Zendaya and Robert Pattinson have a couple of days to kill...

And nothing better to do...

 

Than make a movie with a Norwegian newbie director...

None of us have ever heard of...

Kristoffer Borgli...

 

And I don’t think Drama is going to change that...

 

Because the best I can say about this movie...

 

Which can’t decide whether it’s a romcom or a message movie...

 

Is that it’s mercifully short.. clocking in at one hour and 46 minutes...

Which gives you just enough time to finish your popcorn...

 

But Zendaya once again looks spectacular...

Because you could put that girl in gunny sack

And it would fit her perfectly... and look stunning...

 

And her wedding dress in this film is deceptively simple...

Until you see the cut outs...

 

So it’s understatedly elegant...

In a Carolyn Bessette kind of way...

 

And BTW... Gwyneth... this is how this is done..

You don’t have to forgo underwear to make fashion statement...

 

But Robert Pattinson’s face is starting to look like chiseled granite...

All sharp angles that have gotten more severe with time...

 

And once again, Pattinson is playing a cuck..

Much as he did in Mickey 17, The King, and The Lighthouse...

 

But this time in a film about a groom with wedding jitters...

That is kind of a romcom...

 

But then not really...

 

Because..

 

Drama is also about a school shooter....

 

Except...

 

No one got shot... because it didn’t actually happen...

Even though it was planned...

 

A long time ago...

 

By...

 

Are you ready...

 

The beautiful future bride...

 

Now when was the last time a mass casualty event at a school

Was perpetrated by someone with two X chromosomes...

Who wasn’t trans...

 

And Zendaya is just too lovely and likeable to be believable as a sociopath...

 

And unless you are a sniper well hidden from view...

You are not going to kill that many people with a hunting rifle...

 

But none of this matters...

 

Because Borgli figured out how to imbue his film with the kind of message...

That would get it noticed...

 

Because school shootings do that...

 

And you just knew the Parkland alumni would have to weigh in on this movie...

 

And so an unremarkable romcom was going to get...

 

The kind of press you can’t buy...

 

But that means a film that has some light hearted moments...

Involving the screw ups that accompany even the best planned wedding...

 

Gets heavy....

 

Because the Bride to Be Emma’s history hangs like a wet blanket over everything that happens in this movie...

 

And raises the question...

 

What do you do when you find out something disturbing...

I mean really disturbing...

 And totally unexpected...

 About the person you love...

And are about to marry in a couple of days...

 

But here’s the rub...

 

Emma never did it....

 

And it’s Emma’s friend, Rachel ...

 

Played by the always overrated ...

But Paul Thomas Anderson fav...

Alana Haim...

 

Who BTW is actually perfect for this part...

Because Haim does entitled... and insufferable well...

 

Who gets on her moral high horse over what Emma planned to do...

But never actually did....

 

While Rachel actually did do something awful...

 

Which was lock a mentally disabled boy in a shed in a forest...

And abandon him there...

And she never told anybody what she did...

Or helped them find him...

 

So a search party didn’t rescue him until the next day ...

 

Now I’m not giving the plot of Drama away...

Because these revelations come early in this film

And set the stage for subsequent events...

 

But what they do is leave the audience confused...

 

Is it ok to laugh...

During a film about such a weighty subject...

 

Now Emma likes to role play...

So Borgli could have resolved the contradiction that sinks this film...

By leaning into that...

 

But he doesn’t...

 

Because he knows the plot point about a school shooter..

Is the best way to get the buzz he wants for his film...

 

So Drama remains centered on the question...

 

Does the intent to do something horrific...

Outweigh the fact that it was never actually carried out...

 

So are thoughts alone worthy of punishment?

 

Now our criminal justice system says no...

Mens rea requires actus rea to be a crime...

 

But in an age obsessed with intent...

 

And in which the attribution of motives...

Real and imagined...

On both sides of the political spectrum..

Have come to dominate so much of our political discourse...

 

How Emma ...

 

Who didn’t actually do anything...

While those who are judging her did...

 

Is treated in this film...

 

Comes as no surprise...

 

And is exactly what one would expect...

 

In an age so easy with its moral judgments...

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