April 4, 2026, 7:01 a.m. ET
Spoiler alert! The following story contains major details about the ending of “The Drama” (now in theaters).
For months, people have been speculating about the big “twist” of “The Drama.”
Trailers for the subversive rom-com have cleverly cut around a pivotal dinner scene, in which a soused Emma (Zendaya) makes a disturbing revelation that is met with both shock and disgust from her fiancé, Charlie (Robert Pattinson), and their friends Rachel (Alana Haim) and Mike (Mamoudou Athie).
It’s hard to call it a twist, really, when Emma’s startling admission comes just 15 minutes into the movie. Nevertheless, here is what you need to know about the pitch-black, highly controversial comedy:
What is the big twist in ‘The Drama’ movie?
Emma explains that when she was 15, she planned to carry out a school shooting to take revenge on her tormenting classmates. She even went so far as to bring a gun to school with her. But just as she was ready to go through with the attack, Emma’s teacher informs the class that another student was killed in a mass shooting at a local mall.
Devastated, her classmates form a gun violence prevention program at their school. Impressed by Emma’s eloquence and knowledge around mass shooting statistics, they then appoint her to be one of the group’s leaders, and pretty soon, she is a bleeding-heart activist in the gun control cause.
Emma describes her pivot away from gun violence ideation to “waking up from a bad dream,” and insists that she is a changed person. But Rachel, whose cousin is in a wheelchair because of a mass shooting, all but cuts Emma out of her life.
Charlie, meanwhile, begins to see Emma’s everyday behaviors in a queasy new light, and becomes increasingly on edge about whether she is actually capable of killing people.
The film soon becomes a Pandora’s box of moral quandaries about the limits of empathy: Is it really so bad since Emma never actually went through with it? Had another mass shooting not interfered, would she have carried out the attack? How many average people have once thought about harming ourselves or others? And can we still love somebody when we know the worst parts about them?
“The Drama” tries to take a macro view on these issues. At one point, Rachel scoffs when Charlie chalks this up to “America’s problem,” suggesting that Emma never had the mental health resources to cope with high-school bullying and the death of her close childhood friend in a car accident.
Writer and director Kristoffer Borgli (“Dream Scenario“) offers no easy answers, and he squarely aims to provoke the audience, with varying success.
How does ‘The Drama’ movie end?
After a week of Charlie spiraling over whether to still marry Emma, everything comes to a head on their wedding day. Emma’s gun-loving father and Rachel each make messy toasts at the reception, and a sloshed Charlie nervously forgets his entire speech for Emma. Instead, he accidentally lets it slip that he cheated on her not even a day earlier with his assistant, Misha (Hailey Benton Gates). Enraged, Misha’s boyfriend barrels across the room and beats Charlie up, and Emma flees the banquet hall.
Later that night, a bruised and bloodied Charlie wanders into their favorite diner, where they had promised to go as a cute, low-key way to cap off their wedding. Emma eventually shows up in an orange puffer jacket and bridal gown, and she pretends that she’s meeting Charlie for the first time. Smiling through tears, they start to get to know each other all over again before the screen cuts to black.
The ending feels a bit pat, suggesting that we all make mistakes and are deserving of forgiveness. Most people would agree that cheating and planning a school shooting are hardly equal offenses, and Borgli doesn’t totally stick the landing by sweeping Emma’s past impulses under the rug.
The filmmaker ultimately sees it as a story about unconditional love.
“The movie’s exploring more your personal limit and more the limits of how honest and how flawed you can be in your most private life,” Borgli told the Popcorn Podcast. In the end, he believes Emma and Charlie stay together: “Deep down, I’m a romantic. I’m hopeful. I feel good about their future, but who knows.”