When it comes to finding the love of your life, should there be limits on what you share with them, or is complete transparency a prerequisite for choosing someone as your soulmate, especially when the conversation about marriage begins? Logically, you’d expect that choosing to marry someone comes with the responsibility to share everything with your partner – but as many people who have been in successful, long-lasting marriages will say, everyone needs to keep a couple of secrets to themselves, particularly those that could do more harm than good. We don’t often see this subject explored in art – there are more than ample examples of stories about the past indiscretions of couples being revealed, but very little on the actual act of keeping these secrets, which is a narrow conceptual tightrope walked by Kristoffer Borgli in The Drama, his ambitious third directorial outing in which he presents us with yet another tragicomic portrait of contemporary society. In this case, we’re introduced to Charlie and Emma – he is a mild-mannered museum curator, she is an introverted bookstore clerk, and while they initially seem to be mismatched in terms of their energy, it doesn’t take long for the chemistry to emerge, leading to their eventual plans to get married. Set in the week before the wedding, the couple scrambles to make sure everything is covered to make the big day a memorable one. However, a drunken conversation a few days before the wedding finds Emma and Charlie, as well as their best friends (who also happen to be the maid of honour and best man to the couple), revealing the answers to one simple question: what is the worst thing you have ever done? While three of them are relatively surprising but not all that harmful, one revelation shocks them all and plunges the couple into an existential panic as they attempt to process this new information and handle the aftermath. A cold-blooded dark comedy with layers of complexity that are surprising for something seemingly so pleasant, The Drama is a fascinating piece, a continuous series of surprising moments that coalesce into one of the most bold and unflinching attempts to plumb the emotional depths of the human condition, an ongoing endeavour on the part of the director that reaches a fever pitch in this peculiar film.

There are countless layers with which Borgli is working in terms of developing The Drama into something deeper and more layered. At its core, this is a film about a couple trying to navigate that awkward week before a wedding. Very often, romantic comedies tend to view a marriage as the ultimate goal, the consolidation of the love that we had just spent the past two hours exploring with these characters. On occasion, we do find films that are centred around the wedding itself, a small but compelling genre that is usually very easy to make, since even those who have not experienced it firsthand will know the stress and panic that goes into these preparations. The Drama joins this storied company by focusing on the many trials and tribulations of a couple as they move towards making their final vows to one another through a careful, deliberate and subversive deconstruction of romantic comedy tropes. Borgli has proven that he is not interested in following conventions and instead chooses to take common ideas and rework them into something much more profound, while never attempting to go further than necessary. The film is built around a couple juggling the many difficulties that come with planning a wedding, with a particular focus on the small annoyances and mild inconveniences that usually are overlooked in hindsight, but do present themselves as obstacles, even if they’re relatively small and insignificant in the grander scheme of the planning process. Situations like discovering that your wedding DJ has caught consuming hard drugs in public, or the struggles of perfecting the choreography for the first dance, or even the challenges when choosing the right words for a wedding speech are all common occurrences, and Borgli uses this as a starting point for his biting satire of the lengths to which we go to perfect a day that we may remember for the rest of our lives, but is ultimately not too major of an event for those who surround us on the day. Getting married is a performance, and the idea of perfecting it for an audience that doesn’t witness all the obstacles is fertile ground for a fresh and invigorating deconstruction of the subject matter.

However, The Drama is much more complex than simply being a film about the difficulties in planning a wedding, and the core of the narrative is actually far more serious and unsettling (and if you haven’t seen the film, perhaps skip this part of the discussion), since Borgli is invested in expanding on the dynamic of the couple to the point where it actually becomes deeply disconcerting. The centrepiece scene occurs about a third of the way into the film, in which the prospective bride reveals that during her youth, she planned a school shooting, having been the victim of severe bullying and a system that ignored people like her. Much like the characters in this scene, the audience is instantly bewildered and could not fathom this to be the truth – but as the film progresses and we explore the relationship between these people, it proves to not only be true, but the very epicenter of the story, and the catalyst for a series of events that only prove to complicate the relationship between Emma and Charlie, which grows more fragile with every passing thought. It’s a bitter irony that one of the most decisive, shocking explorations of the gun control crisis and the culture of mass murder in the United States was written and directed by a foreigner, almost as if Borgli is intentionally positioning himself as someone who brings the objectivity of an outsider to the conversation. It’s a controversial subject, and certainly not one that we can take very lightly – but at no point does the director portray it as a trivial matter, nor does he position himself as someone who acts as an authority. Instead, he introduces a series of discussions around a timely subject and uses the film as a vessel to explore these ideas. It introduces some challenging conversations, becoming a psychological examination of memory, trauma and the unbearable burden of the past, and how some secrets are usually best left unspoken, even amongst those whom we love and trust the most. The central tension in The Drama comes not from the revelation of attempted violence, but the idea that someone we love and are willing to commit to for eternity could even have these thoughts, which can plunge even the most dedicated of partners into an existential panic, especially when it causes them to re-assess whether or not they love someone enough to set aside such a shocking revelation, since even just ignoring it becomes more of a challenge than anyone could have potentially anticipated.

Based on the premise, you would expect that The Drama would be a film that required a lot from its actors, since they are responsible for not only conveying these complex themes on screen, but also curating a range of moments, running the gamut of emotions in a way that would be challenging for even the best performers. Mercifully, Borgli manages to enlist quite an impressive cast, which consists of two incredible leads and a strong supporting ensemble, with everyone being united in their quest to effectively capture all the complex nuances of this story on screen. For many years, we’ve been watching Robert Pattinson and Zendaya grow as actors – the former has been working slightly longer than the latter (especially since there’s a decade dividing them), but they’ve both undergone substantial career developments that has made them not only popular, but entirely coveted by the industry, who are drawn to their incredible skill and ability to play complex characters. The Drama is a fantastic opportunity for them both to prove their talents, since the roles of Emma and Charlie are far from conventional or easy to play, and needed actors willing to not only handle the intimidating amount of dialogue in such a way that is not only interesting but also tactful in how it deals with the small intricacies that a lesser actor may ignore. They’re both brilliant, with their chemistry being incredible (although to their credit, they’re both exceptional actors who are known to be able to make meaningful onscreen connections, regardless of who their scene partners may be – it was only a matter of time before they were paired in a film), and their individual moments are unquestionably strong. Pattinson is excellent at playing this man second-guessing his love for the woman he spent so many years pining over, while Zendaya once again proves to be a revelation as this young woman who genuinely believes that being vulnerable with the people she loves cannot possibly have negative consequences. Amongst the supporting cast, we’ve got several actors who I wholeheartedly believe will be changing their industry in their own way – Alana Haim (who is a tremendous villain), Mamoudou Athie, Zoë Winters and Hailey Benton Gates all bring such incredible nuance to characters that could’ve been one-dimensional archetypes, allowing The Drama to have one of the most genuinely inspired ensembles of the past few years.

The two narrative strands of The Drama – one the story of a couple navigating the challenges of the final stage of their wedding preparations, the other a dark tale of abuse and violence – are strange bedfellows, and in theory it should not work. Yet, in addition to being very well-acted by the cast, who are entirely convincing when exploring these complex themes, the film also finds Borgli pushing against some common tropes in a way that is nothing if inspired. It’s not surprising that there is a poster for The Passion of Anna hanging in the protagonists’ apartment, since The Drama is one of the most obvious tributes to Ingmar Bergman we’ve seen in years. Borgli has not deviated from showing how much he was inspired by his esteemed Scandinavian compatriot (Sick of Myself was a daring psychological drama, and Dream Scenario did contain some of the surreal elements that we’d occasionally see in Bergman’s more abstract works), and while this film is a much more simple affair, its impossible to not see it as his tribute to Scenes from a Marriage and the many other similarly-themed dramas that explore the inner architecture of a relationship that is teetering dangerously close on collapse. It’s much funnier than we would expect (especially considering it is built around the theme of domestic terrorism), but its core is very much built from a place of focusing on the internal emotions more than anything else. We gradually see the film unravelling into something much darker and more complex – it becomes quite difficult to pinpoint the film to a particular genre, since there are elements of dark comedy, romance, psychological thriller and even a few brief moments of unhinged horror scattered throughout, turning The Drama into an invigorating mosaic of ideas. The direction is swift and precise, with Borgli not wasting a moment of our time in terms of underlining the core themes or what they represent – it gets to the point and makes sure that we are always aware of what it is trying to say, while also not neglecting to add some flair, such as in the visual style (with director of photography Arseni Khachaturan deserving credit for some of the striking compositions that make the film much more aesthetically compelling than we would imagine), and all ultimately proving to be the foundation of a film unlike any other we’re bound to see anytime soon.

The Drama is a film that is intentionally quite obtuse, and one of the ways in which it differentiates itself from many of the other attempts to rework the romantic comedy into something more profound is through refusing to give the audience any easy answers. We have to work to find the solutions ourselves, dwelling in the discomfort and using our own interpretation to determine our final judgment on these characters and their actions. It’s gloriously subversive, and establishes Borgli as someone who is going to redefine the industry in his own way, even if his particular brand of provocation has the potential to become tacky if not kept in check (although nothing he has done artistically so far suggests that he is not worth the benefit of the doubt), especially when dealing with issues as pressing as this subject matter. As with his previous films, Borgli is focused on exploring contemporary social and cultural issues – Sick of Myself was about the limits to which we will push ourselves to achieve affection, even if it means destroying our own bodies, which is a timely subject in an era driven by influencers. Dream Scenario is about how fame can be a trap, especially as a result of the rise of cancel culture. The Drama continues this streak of socially-conscious dark comedies by looking at romance through the lens of mass violence and the underestimation of mental health as an important issue. How someone could take these ideas and reconfigure them into a film that is not only bitingly funny but also deeply romantic (since the film does have a happy ending, despite leading us down a path where we genuinely begin to expect the worst) is an achievement in itself. It’s a film that is not only unafraid to explore complex, thornier subject matter, but actually relishes the opportunity to comment critically on these enormously intimidating issues. It’s bold, daring filmmaking that is straightforward in its intentions, unfurnished in its execution and ultimately intrepid enough to have the difficult conversations, which is alone a reason to consider it one of the year’s most meaningful and provocative artistic achievements, and a film that will likely only grow in esteem as the years progress and more people are given access to its unflinching and utterly brilliant vision.