Mar 31, 2026 3:00am PT

‘The Drama’ Review: Robert Pattinson and Zendaya in a Half-Funny, Half-Baked Squirm Comedy of Extreme Marital Jitters

Kristoffer Borgli's movie would be as provocative as it wants to be if you could believe it.

Owen Gleiberman

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Owen Gleiberman

Chief Film Critic

@OwenGleiberman

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Courtesy of A24

In “The Drama,” a squirm comedy that’s supposed to hinge on the ultimate case of marital jitters, Robert Pattinson gives one of the twitchiest performances in the history of twitchy performances. Oh sure, Dennis Hopper was twitchier in “Apocalypse Now” — and so was Nicolas Cage spasming and blowing fuses in “Vampire’s Kiss.” But here’s the thing: Pattinson is supposed to be playing a normal person.

He’s Charlie, a British yuppie museum curator who is about to be married, and who will soon be given good reason to walk around in a state of nervous wreckage. Yet Pattinson, sallow and moody, hair hanging in his face, peering through glasses with antic gloom, is twitchy from the very first scene — a meet-cute set (where else?) at an upscale coffee bar. Charlie is pretending to have read the novel that Emma (Zendaya), seated at the window counter, is immersed in. That’s a ruse you could imagine seeing in an old Hugh Grant movie, but Pattinson invests it with stalker energy. You want to tell the character, “If you’re going to leap this far into deception to meet a girl, at least relax about it.”

'The Drama' Review: Robert Pattinson and Zendaya in a Half-Funny, Half-Baked Squirm Comedy of Extreme Marital Jitters