Since the only film other than The Drama by Norwegian director Kristoffer Borgli I’ve seen is his last one, Dream Scenario, I don’t have much insight into his approach except the feeling that he definitely likes his comedy to be as discomfiting as possible. Dream Scenario, which featured Nicolas Cage as an emotionally stunted college professor who suddenly appears in strangers’ dreams, sent up cancel culture, while The Drama goes for the jugular of a whole cinematic genre, the romantic comedy. Zendaya and Robert Pattinson play Emma and Charlie, two thirty-year-olds with cushy, creative jobs in Boston who, after two years of anodyne dating and vigorous, seemingly satisfying sex, decide to get married. The kicker occurs fairly early in the film during the couple’s pre-wedding tasting party with their best man, Mike (Mamoudou Athie), and maid of honor, Rachel (Alana Haim), who happen to be married to each other. After condemning the behavior of a casual acquaintance who may or may not be using heroin, the four very drunk friends challenge one another to reveal the worst thing they’ve ever done in their lives, and Emma’s turns out to be such a doozy that Rachel immediately banishes her from her life and Charlie begins wondering what he’s gotten into.

For the rest of the film, which mostly takes in the week leading up to the wedding, we see Emma’s and Charlie’s relationship deteriorate, mainly from Charlie’s point of view, though Borgli’s method of exposition becomes suspect. He gives us flashbacks to Emma’s adolescence, when the dastardly deed took place, as well as jump-cut inserts that illustrate various aspects of the seemingly doomed relationship, such as Emma’s short temper and Charlie’s supreme lack of self-confidence. These scenes are clever and well-staged and successfully get the viewer squirming over how close-to-the-bone they cut, but it’s often difficult to tell which are based on things that actually happened and which are imaginative leaps; and if they are imaginative leaps, whose imagination do they spring from, Emma’s or Charlie’s? The upshot is that our two principals are so caught up in their romantic illusions that they can’t call the wedding off and thus head right into it like a runaway train over a cliff. The darkly comic climax doesn’t necessarily write itself, but it’s pretty much what you expect and you may end up watching it through your fingers. 

Pattinson has the meatier role. Zendaya’s Emma is presented as something of a cipher. She comes across as more of a solid character in flashback as a teenager (played by Jordyn Curet, who doesn’t much look like a younger Zendaya) than she does as an adult woman. Part of the problem is Borgli’s presentation of contemporary American life. He’s uninterested in the attendant racial dynamics—both of the main couples are interracial—and plays by the rules of the American rom-com in that the production design is invariably upper middle class without realizing how such class depictions might affect our observation of the interpersonal difficulties on display. We don’t even meet the parents until the wedding scene, and then learn almost nothing about them. The Drama does one thing right: it shows how unreliable romantic comedies are as a genre. But we already knew that. It’s probably why we liked them in the first place.  

Enzo is also cringe-inducing, but in a more traditional European art-house way. Based on a script by the late Laurent Cantet and directed by his associate Robin Campillo, it’s a coming-of-age film where the subject goes through more than his fair share of soul-twisting, self-inflicted psychological trauma, though at first blush these interior conflicts seem clear-cut. Sixteen-year-old Enzo (Eloy Pohu) has dropped out of the “traditional school system” and endeavors to become a certified mason through a trade school that finds him employment with a construction crew. We quickly learn that Enzo is not very good at his job, though it seems to have more to do with attitude than ability. When his foreman drives him home one day to talk to his parents about his difficulties, we learn that Enzo lives in a villa in a swanky hill area of southern France overlooking the Mediterranean. Enzo’s family is well off, his father (Pierfrancesco Favino) a tenured math professor and his mother (Elodie Bouchez) an engineer (who, it’s pointed out, makes more money than her husband). Liberal and open-minded, the folks seem fine with their son’s choice of vocation, but we soon come to understand that Dad believes it is just a phase and that he will eventually come to his senses and go back to school. This clash in perspective gets under Enzo’s skin and drives him further into silent rebelliousness, though to what end he never seems certain.

However, the initial plot conceit of a kid bucking his bourgeois pedigree and getting his hands dirty in solidarity with the hoi polloi gives way to something different. Enzo finds himself attracted to a pair of Ukrainian emigrants who are working on the job site for money, especially the cruder of the two, Vlad (Maksym Slivinskyi). When both men are called back to help their country fight off the Russian invaders, it is Vlad who resists the request, a decision that appeals to Enzo because it seems to indicate an expression of will that transcends Vlad’s sense of responsibility. As friction with his father intensifies, Enzo draws closer to Vlad, developing sexual feelings that only further complicate his nascent selfhood, sending him into a tailspin of emotional and physical self-harm.

Though it’s easy to see what Cantet and Campillo are getting at, I regretted that my original take on the story—Enzo’s rejection of his privilege—turned out to be a misconception of the movie’s overall dramatic theme. It turns out to be a red herring, something that lured me into a more conventional tale of a teenager confused by hormones facing choices he doesn’t really comprehend. Though Enzo’s destiny is entirely believable and even moving, it’s also disappointing in the larger scheme of things. 

The Drama now playing in Tokyo at Toho Cinemas Nihonbashi (050-6868-5060), Toho Cinemas Hibiya (050-6868-5068), Toho Cinemas Shinjuku (050-6868-5063), Kino Cinema Shinjuku (03-5315-0978), Human Trust Cinema Shibuya (03-5468-5551), Toho Cinemas Roppongi Hills (050-6868-5024).

Enzo, in French and Ukrainian, now playing in Tokyo at Human Trust Cinema Yurakucho (03-6259-8608), Human Trust Cinema Shibuya (03-5468-5551), Shinjuku Musashinokan (03-3354-5670). 

The Drama home page in Japanese

Enzo home page in Japanese

The Drama photo (c) 2026 Dramatic Movie Rights LLC

Enzo photo (c) Les Films de Pierre