[Editor’s note: The following story contains some spoilers for “The Drama.”]
Now, there’s some real-life drama. A24 and director Kristoffer Borgli’s film “The Drama” is facing scrutiny over its marketing that conceals a major element of the film’s premise.
Specifically, the gun control advocacy group March for Our Lives has shared that the marketing that makes “The Drama” resemble a dark romantic comedy is “deeply misaligned with the reality it engages. We expect better from A24 and the artists behind it.“
In a statement posted to Instagram on Thursday, April 2 ahead of the film’s release this weekend, March for Our Lives issued a content warning for “The Drama,” saying it contains themes of a school shooting. “We don’t want to spoil the movie, but we have to,” the post reads.
The controversial element of “The Drama” that serves as the film’s crux is that, ahead of the wedding between Robert Pattinson and Zendaya’s characters, Zendaya’s character Emma reveals that she once planned a school shooting when she was a young teen. The confession is shared during a dinner with friends, who each share the worst thing they’ve ever done. Emma notes that her plan included practicing with a firearm to the point that it blew out her ear drum in one ear, writing and videoing a manifesto (seen in flashbacks), and even bringing the rifle to school. She, crucially, never carried through with the act.
The revelation rocks the impending nuptials and causes Pattinson’s character Charlie to rethink everything. In his review, IndieWire’s David Ehrlich wrote that “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.”
Much of the entertainment press has done a sensitive job covering the controversy that has stewed around the film as a result of its subject matter, acknowledging that the film’s strength lies in how it asks us to “temper our knee-jerk reactions” and pose questions about “what does unconditional love actually look like?” A large majority of the people reacting to the film’s plot have yet to see it for themselves, and it’s those presumptions that are, ironically, what Borgli and “The Drama” are commenting on.
But March for Our Lives argues that what the film discusses and how the movie is presented by its distributor are two different stories, and A24 may have missed the mark in starting a bigger conversation.
“The film may be attempting to engage real questions about accountability and change, but A24’s marketing does not meet it there,” the organization wrote. “With a subject this serious, especially in the U.S., that conversation cannot begin and end on screen. It has to carry through in how the film is presented. We understand that art can provoke discomfort and use humor to approach difficult subjects. But when something like a school shooting is treated lightly or played for irony, it raises a deeper question: what kind of conversation is this meant to start?”
March for Our Lives Executive Director Jaclyn Corin in a conversation with IndieWire expanded on the issue, clarifying that the organization’s problem is not with the film itself or its content, but with how that conversation has been presented to the public. Corin, who has not seen the film herself, told IndieWire that school shootings are a reality for many young Americans, and it’s important for a film to examine questions of accountability or who a person is after an event like that.
To that end, the group is not going as far as to advocate against seeing the film, but several comments on March for Our Lives’ post have said knowing the film’s subject matter has made them choose not to see it.
“That’s where the tone, perspective, and intent really matter; a concept like this can either really deepen understanding or feel really misaligned with the weight of what it represents,” she said. “When you’re engaging with this subject as complicated and complex as gun violence in America as school shootings, there is a responsibility, in my opinion, on behalf of the artists, directors, the studio, the actors and actresses involved, to make sure that conversation is not only happening in the film but in the marketing, so it’s productive. I think leaving it up in the air and not taking responsibility and discussing how heavy and real world that topic is is a missed opportunity at best, but harmful at worst.”
When reached by IndieWire, A24 had no comment.
Corin is also not the first to take issue with how the film’s marketing has eluded mention of the school shooting plot. Last week, Tom Mauser, whose son was killed in the Columbine High School shooting in 1999, spoke to TMZ and told the outlet he thought it was “awful” the film used that idea as a twist. He was also bothered by what he perceived to be Zendaya laughing off the plot point during a recent appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”
As a survivor herself, Corin sympathized with Mauser’s experience and understood that, for him and others, gun violence is not a theoretical fear.
“I’m not going to see the film personally, because I know that in the film there are flashbacks, and those will bring up really intense and hard feelings for me as a survivor that I am choosing to opt out of,” she said. “He was so valid for sharing that he found the premise awful, because I think engaging with gun violence in the movie with a framing of humor and irony does require the off screen conversations to engage with it with seriousness and intention, but that balance was not met.”
Corin said A24 is an expert at building intrigue for a film, protecting a film’s revelations, and making that a part of their brand. Yet she believes there were ways the marketing team could have still signaled the film’s emotional turns more clearly or made audiences aware of its theme without fully revealing the plot. But, in this instance, hoping people would just enjoy the plot point when it comes to something so personal, is “too much ambiguity can feel like a misdirect.”
Moving forward, she points A24 to another gun violence prevention organization called Brady that advises Hollywood types on how to showcase safe gun use and stories of violence in films. But she also says that A24 should not “go silent or double down” and should instead engage in a larger conversation.
“I’d acknowledge the concern directly, not defensively, but just a clear recognition that people are having this reaction, because it’s real. When families and survivors are expressing discomfort, that should be met with respect,” Corin said. “Offering more clarity on tone and intent, giving audiences a better sense of what the film is actually trying to do. The claim that they hope this film sparks conversation, they can maybe host a conversation themselves with the director, filmmaker, or the actors and actresses involved, actually exemplifying what a productive and serious conversation about gun violence looks like.”
