Robert Pattinson and Zendaya in The Drama
THE DRAMA
Over the past three decades plus, we've been treated to dozens upon dozens of whodunits and twisty horror flicks and Shymalan-ian (and plain-ol'-Shymalan) thrillers of the “Don't spoil the surprise!” variety. But prior to writer/director Kristoffer Borgli's transfixing, deeply uncomfortable A24 romance The Drama, I think you'd have to go back to 1992's The Crying Game to find a film that made you – by which I mean me – quite so antsy to learn its heavily promoted Big Secret. [Author's note: You can relax, as precise spoilers will not be forthcoming.]
The marketing for Borgli's movie, principally its official trailer, has really been something – a miniature master class in building excitement for a non-franchise, non-IP entertainment without really revealing much of anything. We know that the characters played by Zendaya and Robert Pattinson are very much in love, and given the stars' unearthly beauty and natural appeal, why wouldn't they be? We know that this pair, book editor Emma and museum curator Charlie, are planning their wedding. We see them having drinks with another couple played by Alana Haim and Mamoudou Athie. Laughing and tipsy, the friends agree to play a game in which they individually share the worst things they've ever done. They do, and more laughter, along with good-natured shock, commences. It becomes Emma's turn to spill. She does, though what she says is left to our imaginations. The table goes quiet. Everyone looks stricken. The silence is broken with a horrified “Emma, what the f---?!” And then a montage of seriocomic blowups and breakdowns that might not have been so hair-raising if it weren't scored to the Minnie Riperton song “Les Fleurs.” That's the tune Jordan Peele employed for the final seconds of Us.
Everyone I know who's seen it loves this trailer. They should; it's practically perfect. Speaking personally, it also inspired an almost ridiculous need to find out what Emma confessed, yet also garner that info within the experience of the movie itself, and not through advance research or accidental discovery. (For two solid months, whenever I saw The Drama in a newsfeed headline, I immediately scrolled past the mentions all but squeezing my eyes shut and caroling “La la la la la I don't see you!!!” as a hex against spoilers.) Having finally caught up with the film, all is now known, and obviously I won't be sharing the particulars of Emma's revelation. Because something needs to be said, however, I will state that the woman's previously unspoken admission is a doozy – though perhaps not the type of whopper you were perhaps hoping for or anticipating. When discussing the reveal with pals, you probably won't find yourself saying “Can you believe what Emma confessed to?!” with any sort of flabbergasted glee. More likely, you may find yourself as shellshocked as Charlie, wondering, as he does, whether his bride-to-be's declaration can possibly lead to a Happily Ever After.
If you're interested in viewing The Drama and plan to see it ignorant of its particulars, I urge you to avoid articles on the subject (except, you know, this one) the way I did – and that's more important now than it was before the film's release, as think pieces have recently been coming out of the woodwork. Words such as “thoughtless” and “irresponsible” have been bandied about, with some authors finding the movie, and its Big Secret, not merely manipulative, but grossly heedless and offensive. I don't personally agree, despite understanding the source of the vitriol. Yet reducing Norwegian creator Borgli's astute, nerve-racking love story – a comedy only in the bleakest sense of the term – to an empty provocation seems, to me, to be missing the point.
The Drama isn't about how you might react if your intended admitted something awful days before your wedding. It's about how you might react if your intended admitted the actual worst thing. Whether Borgli was right in giving Emma the backstory he did can and should be argued. His decision, though, isn't to be blithely disregarded, because the specifics lead to ruminations, for both the characters and us, on matters essential to developing and maintaining lifelong unions: empathy, candor, trust, forgiveness. Charlie's sense of self, his entire world, is rocked by Emma's revelation. Yet so is hers, and in Pattinson's and Zendaya's remarkable, jolting, exposed-nerve portrayals, you witness how the shakeup causes both partners to spiral out in increasingly upsetting, even dangerous ways. Among those suffering all this emotional shrapnel are the couple's besties (Athie and the fire-breathing Haim are both superb), their acquaintances (with Hailey Gates especially affecting as Charlie's co-worker Misha), and even figures they'll only know for a fay or two. In one of the movie's few overtly comedic detours, a scene largely showcased in the first teaser trailer, Zoë Winters' aggressively chipper wedding photographer does everything in her power to elicit a smile from Charlie. Her efforts don't take, and at best she gets something between a forced grin and a grimace. I'm betting that, all throughout The Drama, my face looked much the same way, but I was at least thoroughly engaged.
It wasn't until after my viewing that I learned Kristoffer Borgli's other feature credits include his 2023 comedy Dream Scenario. In that one, the writer/director had a fantastically promising premise – Nicolas Cage keeps popping up in other people's dreams for no reason! – that he didn't appear to fully know what to do with. From the opening minutes' jangly, off-kilter editing rhythms through the beautiful, sad serenity of the finale, he seems to know precisely what to do with The Drama. It's been many months since I've felt so (wonderfully) anxiously unsettled at the cineplex, and despite the luxury of auditorium recliners, I actively chose to avoid that perk for the last half-hour of Borgli's latest, for which watching in passive, nearly horizontal acquiescence felt out of the question. I both figuratively and literally wanted to be, and was, on the edge of my seat.
THE SUPER MARIO GALAXY MOVIE
What is the sound of one hand clapping? I dunno. But barring the sounds of rustling popcorn bags and slurps of slushies, it can't be much louder than the collective lack of noise I heard from my opening-day audience at The Super Mario Galaxy Movie. This wasn't a nearly empty house, mind you. This house was pretty jam-packed for 4 p.m. on a Wednesday, the kids outnumbering the grown-ups about four to one, and my favorite 11-year-old couldn't have been the only attending youth initially eager to see a continuation to The Super Mario Bros. Movie. That 2023 smash was a hyperactive yet largely tedious affair at least enlivened by Jack Black's vocal enthusiasm as Bowser and the young patrons' aural delight in watching favorite video-game characters brought to big-screen life. Yet whether the crowd was anesthetized by their sugary concessions or wiped out by the half-hour of infinitely superior trailers and commercials preceding the movie, the word that most readily came to mind last Wednesday was “ennui” – everyone just seemed so over it. Though perhaps patrons weren't even looking for an excitable good time. With increasing frequency these days, I've noticed more and more families arriving at the cineplex with the kids in pajamas, holding onto blankets and stuffed animals as they entered the theater. Maybe, instead of rousing fun, they were simply preparing for a nap.
If so, these tykes and their adult companions couldn't have picked better than directors Aaron Horvath's and Michael Jelenic's animated continuation for which Matthew Fogel is credited as screenwriter. I've looked him up, and if Google photos are to be trusted, Fogel does appear to be a living human being. I suppose I should be grateful that “Matthew Fogel” doesn't appear to be a pseudonym for an AI program with a six-year-old's world experience, but I'm not sure. With the exception of one repeated gag involving a slow-moving robot that appears air-lifted in from the Zootopia DMV, you'd be hard-pressed to find a single legitimate joke – and that's with Black reprising his role – and the rest of the dialogue is all exposition and repartee of the “I'm going to kill you, Mario!”/”You and what army?” type. There are a few legitimately cool locations to gawk at, particularly the casino that's like a gravity-free funhouse and the newly made planet that Bowser Jr. (Benny Safdie) creates to impress his long-absent dad. The filmmakers, though, don't give us much time or impetus to marvel at these visual marvels, eager as they seem to move on to the next video-game level whose wonders are ignored just as thoroughly.
And has any vocal cast for a kiddie animation ever before sounded so lethargic? Black appears to run out of inspiration with his introductory scene, and sadly, unlike in Super Mario Bros., Bowser isn't given another chance to caterwaul a love ballad that brings to mind Tenacious D. But everyone sounds on the edge of narcolepsy here: Charlie Day (as Luigi), Anya Taylor-Joy (as Princess Peach), Keegan-Michael Key, Donald Glover, Brie Larson, Issa Rae, Luis Guzmán … . Even Glen Powell, whose newly introduced adventurer Fox McCloud would seem to be an easy fan favorite, sounds bored, and one of the most inspiring aspects of Powell's ascending stardom over the past few years is that he never seems bored. (Were these talents being held at knifepoint?) As for Mario portrayer Chris Pratt, did anyone bother to tell him that his plumber hero is Italian? I've never heard a less ethnic, or enthused, reading of “Mamma mia!” in my life. Not that it matters, but the plot of The Super Mario Galaxy Movie involves a kidnapping, a double-cross, a race of potentially orphaned floating blobs, a pair of separated sisters reuniting, and a father and son attempting to alternately take over and destroy the universe. Like those presumably sleeping viewers tightly grasping their blankies and furry friends, or my 11-year-old pal who was slouched in their seat before the movie was even an hour old, you'd be forgiven for thinking this box-office blockbuster didn't have a plot at all.
PIZZA MOVIE
For more inviting video-game-esque mayhem, though mayhem you abjectly shouldn't expose young children to, I'd instead guide you toward Pizza Movie, an unapologetically silly, at times gloriously unhinged slapstick by the BriTANick comedy team of Brian McElhaney and Nick Kocher. I call the recent Hulu debut “video-game-esque” because the entire narrative concerns a pair of collegiate ne'er-do-wells (Sean Glambrone and Stranger Things' Gaten Matarazzo) who consume psychedelics and have to travel from their dorm room to the lobby several stories below for the pizza that will counteract the drugs' effects. (Unlike the movie itself, I am not joking.) Every few feet of their journey present new sets of challenges that must be overcome before ultimate victory, making the experience kind of like The Super Mario Galaxy Movie for stoners … but with actual jokes.
Yet that's not the only way to look at McElhaney's and Kocher's demented opus, because there's also a lot of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World in this thing, and Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, and even the recent, magnificent Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die. More than anything, though, Pizza Movie suggests a feature-length take on that uproarious 21 Jump Street sequence in which Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum, after being forced to take drugs, go through five distinct stages of effed-up-ness before the effects wear off. I'd love to say that this BriTANick outing was on that side narrative's level of genius, but it's not; the midsection gets a little dull and repetitive, and there's not much fun to be found in Jack Martin's odious, authoritarian RA Blake. (Having the resident bully played by a Tom Cruise lookalike/wannabe has been a cliché since at least 1998's Can't Hardly Wait.) But for just over 90 minutes on your couch, depending on your state-of-mind circumstances and the people you choose to share them with, this charming, filthy little odyssey may hit the sweet spot. I dug the drug phase that left our heroes and their accidental ally (Lulu Wilson) constitutionally unable to tell a lie, as well as the frustrated inability of pizza-delivery robot Snackatron 3000 (voiced by Bobby Moynihan) to traverse a flight of stairs. Best of all is the gag in which the leads' heads literally explode every time they utter a curse word, which happens about two dozen times in a row. Pizza Movie is pretty terrific. That particular routine is the shit. [Splat.]
