Movies

The Zendaya Romance The Drama Is Weirder and More Uncomfortable Than You Expect

A movie about marriage, memory, and the difficulty of knowing another person.

Peter Suderman | 4.3.2026 9:50 AM

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(The Drama/A24)

The first thing you need to know about The Drama is that it's not what you expect. Like really, really not what you expect. 

The marketing has positioned the film as an awkward twist on the rom-com with a pair of hot young stars, Robert Pattinson and Zendaya, batting eyes at each other as they stumble and mumble their way to a wedding. It's got the A24 imprimatur and a low-light, Instagram aesthetic that suggests a skeptical, modern take on young love. It's been sold as a very conventional kind of unconventional romance. 

And, well, it is that—sort of. But it's much weirder, much darker, and much more uncomfortable than you've been led to assume. It's a movie about marriage and mind games, social taboos, and the difficulty of ever knowing, much less loving, another human being. It........

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