'Some will be appalled': The Drama's horrifying twist is set to divide audiences

Zendaya and Robert Pattinson's new film about a soon-to-be married couple is a romcom with a disturbing difference. The result is 2026's "first great cinematic conversation-starter".

Zendaya and Robert Pattinson haven't shied away from contentious material in the past, from Zendaya's breakthrough role in Euphoria to Pattinson's role in… well, pretty much everything he's done since the Twilight franchise. But their new film, The Drama, is sure to be the most divisive project to feature either of them. Some viewers will love it, and some will be appalled, despite it being, on one level, a romantic comedy about pre-wedding jitters.

Warning: this article contains major spoilers for The Drama and references to violence which some readers may find distressing

The best way to appreciate The Drama is not to know the details in advance, so don't read on if you want to see it as the film-makers intended. All that the trailers have given away is that Zendaya and Pattinson play a gorgeous young couple, Emma and Charlie, who are a week away from their wedding in Boston when Emma makes an alcohol-fuelled confession. After a few too many wines with their friends Rachel (Alana Haim) and Mike (Mamoudou Athie), Rachel talks them into revealing the worst things they've ever done. This article will reveal it, too, and while the scene is near the beginning of the film, it might be better not to know it at all – so be warned.

Here it is: Emma says that when she was 15, she planned to take a rifle into her Louisiana high school and murder her classmates. She changed her mind, and no one ever guessed how close she came. But she knows what she wanted to do, and now Charlie knows it, too. Can he go ahead with the wedding? Can he take comfort in the fact that Emma committed no actual crime? Or should he run away from someone who may have lingering homicidal urges while he still can?

The Drama isn't the first film to engage with high-school massacres: notable examples are Gus Van Sant's........

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