A gun control advocate and a school shootings expert speak out on Robert Pattinson and Zendaya's controversial “The Drama”

Ryan ColemanWed, April 15, 2026 at 7:11 PM UTC

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Zendaya and Robert Pattinson in 'The Drama'Credit: Courtesy of A24

This article contains spoilers about The Drama.

Robert Pattinson and Zendaya know drama, from the former's years as heartthrob supreme Edward Cullen in the endlessly debated Twilight franchise, to the latter's harrowing turn as the addict Rue Bennett on the equally divisive HBO series Euphoria.

But with their latest film, Norwegian provocateur Kristoffer Borgli's dark comedy of errors, The Drama, even more existential questions have arisen, pointing to the very heart of how films can and should function.

Pattinson and Zendaya star as Charlie Thompson and Emma Harwood, a young couple on the eve of their wedding whose relationship is dealt an alarming blow. Emma discloses to Charlie and their friends Rachel (Alana Haim) and Mike (Mamoudou Athie) that, as an angry, bullied teen, she planned to commit a school shooting to punish her tormentors. She did not go through with it, finding community instead, ironically, in a gun control advocacy organization. But the disclosure radicalizes Rachel (whose cousin is a school shooting survivor) against her, and seriously disturbs Charlie, whose spiral into infidelity ruins their wedding.

Zendaya, Robert Pattinson in 'The Drama'Credit: Courtesy of A24

The Drama has received mostly favorable reviews, but its detractors have singled out the school shooting storyline for criticism. Representatives of gun control advocacy groups like March for Our Lives took issue with the film's marketing, calling it "deeply misaligned" and stating that it "[expects] better" from studio A24.

For a deeper perspective on the film and its controversial twist, Entertainment Weekly spoke with Mia Tretta, who became a fierce gun control advocate after surviving two school shootings, and Dr. Jillian Peterson, who wrote the acclaimed The Violence Project: How to Stop a Mass Shooting Epidemic, and is executive director of the Violence Prevention Project. They both shared concerns about the nature of The Drama's engagement with gun violence, and the reciprocal effect that media like it can have on culture.

"I think the film's ideas around forgiveness and empathy, and how much people change, that's real, and that's a nice theme," Peterson says. "I even think there's a way to make a movie about that issue," that is, the issue of school shootings. "But this was not the way to do it."

Robert Pattinson and Zendaya in 'The Drama'Credit: Courtesy of A24

Both Peterson and Tretta acknowledge that with the prevalence of school shootings, particularly in the United States, filmmakers and other creators will naturally be drawn toward exploring them in their art. A 2018 Pew Research Center study found that a majority of teens worried that a shooting could happen at their school. And by 2023, the number of reported incidents had more than doubled.

Tretta, who was shot by a classmate during the 2019 Saugus High School shooting in Santa Clarita, Calif., actually credits a fictional representation of gun violence in aiding her decision-making on that day. "I always tell people the reason during the shooting that I ran to a classroom and not the school bathroom was because of that scene in Glee that had a school shooting that wasn't actually a school shooting, where a girl hid in the bathroom and had no one with her."

"Media is something that really sticks with people, shapes a lot of your mentality and mindset around things," she shares. Peterson concurs: "Media narratives are important, and they do end up shaping public perception around these issues and policy. So it's really important, I think, when we do these fictionalized pieces to keep it really accurate, to be really careful with the profile or the story that we're telling."

That, according to Tretta and Peterson, is an area where The Drama falters.

They both raise a number of issues with the film, from its marketing campaign, which concealed the school shooting storyline as a twist, to the absence of the voices of victims and survivors, to an interpretation that planning a mass casualty event and cheating on your spouse are comparable red flags (though the film itself does not directly suggest this).

But the aspect of The Drama they both pointed to first was the film's comedic tone. "It was a comedy about school shootings, and made essentially a mockery of people's real lives," Tretta says. "It felt very much like Rachel, the maid-of-honor character, was made out to be crazy for overreacting. Even Robert Pattinson's character [was] made out to be overreacting, crazy. It didn't make a whole lot of sense to me, because I felt as though most people were actually under-reacting."

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Peterson says that it "felt really inappropriate that the movie was sort of comedic," wasn't "giving it the gravity that I think it deserved," and ultimately "did feel like it was making light" of school shootings.

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Mamoudou Athie and Alana Haiim in 'The Drama'Credit: Jaclyn Martinez/A24

After spending decades studying the profiles of school shooters across the nation, Peterson says she is not easily surprised. But The Drama "did really shock me." In particular, she singles out the film's marketing campaign, which she says turned the school shooting element into an "inappropriate twist, just knowing how many people have been exposed to this."

The preponderance of mass violence events at American schools has made the subject into a "six degrees of separation" type of phenomenon, Peterson says. "As somebody who studies this, people know people who are on the scene, it happened in their community, it happened to them. And we know that it has really significant mental health impacts around anxiety and trauma. So for that to be a twist, when you think you're watching some sort of romantic comedy, felt really off-putting."

It's worth noting that while The Drama's marketing did have lighter, rom-com-geared promos, there were also hints that Emma's secret was dark and deeply upsetting to those around her. A trailer offered a glimpse of the scene in which she tells Charlie, Rachel, and Mike about the worst thing she's ever done, and their shocked reactions make it clear they are seriously troubled by her admission. Zendaya also noted that the film is not strictly a rom-com in a pre-release interview with Jimmy Kimmel, saying it would spark "so many conversations." Early reviews, along with spoiler-filled threads on sites like Reddit, offered clues as well.

Marketing aside, Tretta argues the film could have a normalizing effect on the subject of school shootings. "I think in many ways, it's media's responsibility to not have their films create more danger in society. And to me, that entire film felt not only like normalizing the thoughts of having school shootings, but also increasing the aesthetics around school shootings, increasing the appeal, if you will, of what should be crazy, unthinkable, unimaginable," she says.

Zendaya, director Kristoffer Borgli, and Robert Pattinson on the set of 'The Drama'Credit: Jaclyn Martinez/A24

"Twenty years ago, after Columbine, no one would even have thought to do this because it was still seen as such a terrible, Earth-shattering thing," she adds. "We saw how the world shut down when Sandy Hook happened. That doesn't happen anymore. Maybe people started to think that it was okay, but we need to bring [back] the unimaginable-ness around school shootings, when they're so life-altering for so many people."

Despite its dark comedic tone, it's again worth pointing out, especially for those who haven't seen the movie, that Emma's friends and fiancé are not numb to her revelation. In fact, their horror at her admission drives the drama at the heart of The Drama. Emma herself expresses remorse and disgust for thinking about committing such senseless violence, rightly calling it the worst thing she's ever done.

Still, what could The Drama have done better? Should it even have been made at all? Peterson points to several aspects of the film that she sees as accurate, and potentially even helpful in the fight against gun violence.

While Tretta argued that the film could be seen as glorifying the aesthetics around school shooters, Peterson says the film's imagery of teenage Emma posing for pictures and videos with a rifle is consistent with the behavior of perpetrators. "The idea of sort of posing, and this idea that you're kind of trying on this character, trying to film things and kind of carrying around the gun and feeling powerful and having unrestricted access to it, some of that I would say is consistent with what we know," she explains.

Zendaya in 'The Drama'Credit: Courtesy of A24

And there's more: Emma pulling herself out of her violent fantasies by finding a community, in this case, a gun control advocacy group, has a ring of truth to it. "Community and connection is what pulls you out," Peterson says. "I actually did like the idea that it can be a momentary thing in your life. You can have a dark crisis and think about it and not do it and become a really good person." Although "making it a gun control group seemed like a little bit much," Peterson reasons, "at least it was a community."

However, Tretta says The Drama would have benefited from the inclusion of certain "resources," such as a scene depicting safe storage practices, gun violence prevention advocacy information in the credits, or dedicating a discussion to gun violence prevention even before the film was released, during its press tour. She points to the season 1 finale of the Netflix series On My Block and a three-episode arc on The Pitt season 1, dealing with a mass shooting, as examples of accurate and even actionable representations.

Peterson suggests that victims' and survivors' perspectives ought to be central when crafting representations of mass violence. "I think if you are making a movie about this topic, you've got to talk to some victims, get their perspectives, and make sure you're doing it in a respectful way. It is as simple as that."

on Entertainment Weekly

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