The leading couple faces a wedding week marked by tension, contradictions, and an intimacy that is beginning to crack.
A24 has released the first glimpse of ‘The Drama’, the new film by Kristoffer Borgli that places Zendaya and Robert Pattinson at the emotional centre of a relationship faltering at the very moment it should be finding stability. Zendaya plays Emma Harwood, while Pattinson portrays Charlie Thompson, a couple preparing for their wedding until an unexpected turn disrupts their plans and tests the foundations of their most important week.
The teaser opens with Emma and Charlie in a photography studio, ready to take their formal pre-wedding portraits. Their tense posture sets the tone as the photographer attempts to guide them with gentle prompts. Between their stiff gestures, flashes of past closeness appear: quiet mornings, private jokes, and everyday routines that once defined their bond. The contrast between those warm memories and the present froideur hints at an emotional fracture the couple can no longer conceal.
When the photographer asks them to share what they appreciate about one another, Charlie describes Emma as “beautiful”, “funny” and someone with “the best life”, while Emma calls him “kind, understanding and open-minded”. Their words overlap with a moment of awkward intimacy, suggesting that closeness once guaranteed no longer ensures present balance. The photographer’s invitation to “remember” who they are to each other becomes painfully ironic against the tension simmering beneath the surface.
The trailer widens its scope and reveals the first signs of rupture: a toast from Mamoudou Athie, pressure-filled interiors, an alarm slicing through a scene, and Charlie’s sudden outburst as he throws a chair. Later, he appears in the street insisting it is “just a drama”, a line combining denial with a reluctant acknowledgement of the chaos surrounding him. Emma, for her part, downs a drink in one go — a gesture that makes her emotional exhaustion unmistakable.
The cast is completed by Mamoudou Athie, Alana Haim and Hailey Gates, reinforcing a narrative that moves between private tensions and public scrutiny during a week that should symbolise clarity. A24 accompanied the release with an Instagram announcement styled after the Boston Globe, presenting the wedding as “the event of the year” and detailing Emma’s background — daughter of a decorated veteran, raised in Louisiana and a graduate of Boston University — alongside Charlie’s academic path as a Tufts University Art History doctorate and director of the Cambridge Arts Museum.
With a scheduled release date of 3 April 2026, ‘The Drama’ positions itself as an emotional comedy about the fissures of affection, exploring how two people who once loved each other intensely can find themselves trapped between the memory of who they were and the discomfort of who they have become.
