Laugh at the ceremonial nerves of hidden truths and matrimony. Cry at the epidemic wave of violence and its casualties. Wince at the stirring of shock and ambiguity. Smile at the hope of love prevailing. This is The Drama.
Spoilers ahead! This Post-Theater Digest reflects on key quotes from the film (in bold) and what we can draw from them. Quotes and reflective thoughts are pulled directly from the movie — read at your own discretion!
This post is about the movie The Drama. Directed by Kristoffer Borgli. Starring Zendaya and Robert Pattinson.
It’s Nice To Meet You
At the shot of your own pain, it’s all you hear. After all this time and so many years. Why here and now when you’re so far from it. To have for the first time your own beloved.
The mix of feelings brings pressure in speech. How do things collapse in only a week? You think you know until you don’t. Quick to regret the words you spoke.
To have stopped at all was not your intention. A swirl of emotion from just one question.
What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?
The Drama is the drama that we need, marrying the fine line of past lives and new beginnings. Shooting itself as painfully awkward as much as it is awkwardly painful. It’s an honest aftermath that makes you ask — can we start again?
Key Quotes & Reflections
This One Thing
“This wouldn’t be a question if we didn’t randomly see her today.”
~ Emma
Are we not the culmination of things? The very things that draw two strangers to be two strangers no more? To try to be better than that which came before? Without both patience and kindness are we but arrogant and rude? What is to be of love if lived in this way?
It’s A Wedding It’s Performative By Nature. A performance, a promise. Til death do us part. What is it that you pronounce in marriage?
I Don’t Want To Dismiss Her Because of This One Thing. How much grace do we give? How much grace can we give?
This Wouldn’t Be A Question If We Didn’t See Her Today. It’s not so much what’s seen but the posture of the heart that lives in silence.
I Didn’t Actually Do Anything. Though sufficient was the precipice?
At The Time I Was Really Depressed. Long standing the unbearable depth of suffering to which life departs far from itself. Can we not feel for our neighbor?
Was It True?
“It thought it looked cool…I started to believe it…”
~ Emma
Is it better to withhold the truth or tell it? What’s the power that lives in omission? Right or wrong, of your own accord or not, what do we make of confession? To forgive or forget. To persist or relent. Do we at all deserve to start over again?
She’s obviously not the person you thought she was. Who are we supposed to be to begin with?
I’m kind of thinking I have to know. What are we to do with that we do not fully understand?
I don’t want you to fixate on this. Obsession, obsession, so much concession. Is the problem with them or more of our own?
That’s the reason why you didn’t do it? If so the reason, does it make a difference? For is it a fault or a grace that’s been given?
Let’s start over. As far as the east is from the west — how much more are we to forgive?
Not The Same Person
“Even if he was completely open and honest about it and he made you believe without a shadow of a doubt he changed…?”
~ Charlie
What is that which surrounds us? All that we take in? Aren’t we all not made lost by sin? The heart, it clings, as it longs for more; it acts, it wavers, to what it abhors. To understand is hard when the mind cannot yet cope. Can we not see that alike we are all exposed?
It’s a whole thing in this country isn’t it? To pledge an allegiance, assertions from every which region. Inclined, do you not grieve for this state?
Can I be completely honest? Honest we should be; though in good conscience and faith is how it should be received.
True love is complicated. True love is radical acceptance. Accepting and giving. Patient and kind. Do we not know what we are called to mind?
Obviously he’s not the same person now. That can be true. To be just the same, though entirely new. Is living not learning that we are often met nearest the edge of who we almost become?
It’s Nice to Meet You
“It wouldn’t change how I feel about you. I love you more than anything in the world.”
~ Charlie
In this world so dark, what stands to give it light? With many who so prod of both arrogance and strife. Sharing with others and least not pretend. A mess such as this how does one make amends? It ends much quicker than the chapter itself. To now only realize what you have felt. If only you can start again…
May your love grow deeper everyday. Must one live in any other way?
To the happy carefree couple. Do you not care to mature? What is friendship if not the willingness to endure? Does not a whisper separate close friends?
It meant nothing. What is to defend your spur of emotion? When the heart, it aches, the flesh becomes devotion.
Where’s Emma? If one so pushes, is it okay to let go? What fun is it to dance at home alone?
It’s Nice To Meet You. To meet forgiveness in sorrow. Joy in the midst of pain. To have reached for love and be to met with the same. Let’s put an end to all this drama.
To The Believer
So much of ourselves live amid the chaos of trespass and hope, aching to satiate the hole of eternity that lives within. We cope with echoes of what we long to receive; clutching the holsters of our anguish.
Treading this advance we are head ridden and heart stricken with the consequences of nature as it so presently entails.
We identify with the pain as too we seek to live beyond it. The attempt of virtue evidences something greater and opposite of its kind. To be earnest in its attempt is fruitful.
Reaching for what we long to hold us you back, with but a single touch to say “I do.”
Finding you can surpass the drama, smiling like you would in life.
Further Reflections
Past Lives: Where You’re Supposed To Be
Love is the makeup of life’s choices, though how is it you end up where you’re supposed to be?
Sentimental Value: I Want A Home
A person can wander long enough that wandering itself becomes a condition of the soul. So what is your posture of sentiment?
Credits: Script excerpts and select images from The Drama (© A24) are included for purposes of reflection and thematic analysis.
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