This is probably the best analysis and deep-dive into the film I've read yet. So many people are trying to decode, discuss, rip apart, diagnose it, etc. But I feel like they are missing so much nuance. Yet, I feel as if you've done so much work here to pull out what Borgli is doing (or at the very least what could have been intended).
Saw this tonight. My son (19) took me as a birthday present. I’ve been taking him to the cinema since he was 18 mts old… We chatted it through in the car on the way home - far from the incredibly detailed and informed piece you write above! (Thank you for it. Brilliant. Just brilliant.)Me, the baggage of growing up in Belfast - him - no baggage. What we ended up with is we both would have stayed in the relationship. 15 is a long way from 30. And at 52, I can say 30 feels light years away. We evolve daily… At 15, well, I wasn’t sure I wanted to be on this planet any more. And that changed overnight. Because teen emotions are enormous and a rollercoaster. I actually felt aggrieved that Robert Patterson’s character was so unforgiving…
"who’d always known how to show up to drinks without spending 45 minutes in the bathroom first trying to remember how to make her face do the thing that signals “I am having a good time and you should continue talking to me.”" gut-punch. Thank you for this well-discussed, richly written analysis. Excited to check out "Stigma," if not The Drama.
Haven't seen the movie, hate spoilers, read the review anyway because no plans to see movie, now very much plan to see movie. Good job.
Loved much of the review, major nits to pick with other parts, ie among others that the characters were somehow choosing a delusion at the end, which, it didn't sound like at all? Maybe that's because I haven't seen it, but sounds more like they were choosing reality and love over society and delusional scripts . Obviously this statement may vanish once I actually see it. Anyway, excellent essay.
Hi, thank you so much for reading it anyway! Yeah I totally hear where you're coming from - my argument for calling it a bit delusional as a decision is because of the chances of their relationship working out. A bunch of things happen in the film with their friends/families/colleagues that are irreversible so the them believing this is going work is kind of crazy. But kudos to them for giving it a whirl lol
ugh this analysis almost made me change my mind about the ending. lmk if you have thoughts on this though:
the movie has this cynicism around social performance, the scripts we try to follow, I would say it's what ties it all together. The final scene is a rejection of it all, as you write: "Love is the choice to write your own line when the room's script ends." And this is a beautiful concept for an inverted romcom, it's everything else that bothers me.
Borgli structures the whole thing like a thought-experiment rigged to get us to talk about it; to adjudicate the characters the way they adjudicate themselves. Rachel and Emma are cartoonishly written to get us to hate one and forgive the other. And so we feel compelled to walk out of the theater and engage in the same judgment that the film seems to reject.
All of the discourse around who's right and who's wrong seems like what Borgli was critquing, but by its structure the movie is rigged to center those questions, so I don't even think we're being hypocritical by wanting to talk about that, it's just the movie Borgli made. Really makes it hard for me to feel the emotional beat of the last scene that you articulate so well.
"It is impossible to simply defend her through the lens of a bad upbringing when" but did she have a bad upbringing? Where did we learn that? I think the film fails with Emma's character, she has no depth or story, we never learn why she fell into the incel gun chats or what triggered her depression to begin with. We can assume many various things like bad parenting but we don't know, so ultimately our feelings for emma will only ever reflect our own thoughts on what it means to be s biracial young woman of colour in america. For me my empathy didn't waver because realistically for such an unrealistic scenario to occur something deeply troubled or wrong would have happened to emma. I could not fully engage with the film because i could not move past Emma's unknown why. What was interesting to watch was Rachel's immediate move past it and Charlie's soon after getting only thin answers. The film depicts and recreates the position of black& biracial women, whereby our interiority is dismissed by both lovers and friends and audiences at large.
This is probably the best analysis and deep-dive into the film I've read yet. So many people are trying to decode, discuss, rip apart, diagnose it, etc. But I feel like they are missing so much nuance. Yet, I feel as if you've done so much work here to pull out what Borgli is doing (or at the very least what could have been intended).
not me getting emotional reading this 😭 the highest of praise, thank you, Jade!!
Saw this tonight. My son (19) took me as a birthday present. I’ve been taking him to the cinema since he was 18 mts old… We chatted it through in the car on the way home - far from the incredibly detailed and informed piece you write above! (Thank you for it. Brilliant. Just brilliant.)Me, the baggage of growing up in Belfast - him - no baggage. What we ended up with is we both would have stayed in the relationship. 15 is a long way from 30. And at 52, I can say 30 feels light years away. We evolve daily… At 15, well, I wasn’t sure I wanted to be on this planet any more. And that changed overnight. Because teen emotions are enormous and a rollercoaster. I actually felt aggrieved that Robert Patterson’s character was so unforgiving…
Aw that’s such a good reflection - you’re so right. This would have panned out differently at a different stage in their life.
You did your homework and layout it nicely to follow. Thanks for the read.
Pleasure!
Thank you for making time and delivering expertise on film 🎥 and story.
This is an incredible analysis, I enjoyed every second of it. Chapeau.
Aw appreciate you, Ester 💓
"who’d always known how to show up to drinks without spending 45 minutes in the bathroom first trying to remember how to make her face do the thing that signals “I am having a good time and you should continue talking to me.”" gut-punch. Thank you for this well-discussed, richly written analysis. Excited to check out "Stigma," if not The Drama.
Haven't seen the movie, hate spoilers, read the review anyway because no plans to see movie, now very much plan to see movie. Good job.
Loved much of the review, major nits to pick with other parts, ie among others that the characters were somehow choosing a delusion at the end, which, it didn't sound like at all? Maybe that's because I haven't seen it, but sounds more like they were choosing reality and love over society and delusional scripts . Obviously this statement may vanish once I actually see it. Anyway, excellent essay.
Hi, thank you so much for reading it anyway! Yeah I totally hear where you're coming from - my argument for calling it a bit delusional as a decision is because of the chances of their relationship working out. A bunch of things happen in the film with their friends/families/colleagues that are irreversible so the them believing this is going work is kind of crazy. But kudos to them for giving it a whirl lol
Great post, have to read this Goffman book now. Was quite impressed by his Presentation of Self in Everyday Life.
Thank you! And yes, he's such a compelling thinker
this is so phenomenal. i'm gonna go re-read it again. i haven't even seen the movie
💓
ugh this analysis almost made me change my mind about the ending. lmk if you have thoughts on this though:
the movie has this cynicism around social performance, the scripts we try to follow, I would say it's what ties it all together. The final scene is a rejection of it all, as you write: "Love is the choice to write your own line when the room's script ends." And this is a beautiful concept for an inverted romcom, it's everything else that bothers me.
Borgli structures the whole thing like a thought-experiment rigged to get us to talk about it; to adjudicate the characters the way they adjudicate themselves. Rachel and Emma are cartoonishly written to get us to hate one and forgive the other. And so we feel compelled to walk out of the theater and engage in the same judgment that the film seems to reject.
All of the discourse around who's right and who's wrong seems like what Borgli was critquing, but by its structure the movie is rigged to center those questions, so I don't even think we're being hypocritical by wanting to talk about that, it's just the movie Borgli made. Really makes it hard for me to feel the emotional beat of the last scene that you articulate so well.
anyway, just my 2 cents, I loved your essay and am glad to see some critical engagement with this movie. my full take is here: https://smtsmtpostmodern.substack.com/p/the-drama-what-drama
"It is impossible to simply defend her through the lens of a bad upbringing when" but did she have a bad upbringing? Where did we learn that? I think the film fails with Emma's character, she has no depth or story, we never learn why she fell into the incel gun chats or what triggered her depression to begin with. We can assume many various things like bad parenting but we don't know, so ultimately our feelings for emma will only ever reflect our own thoughts on what it means to be s biracial young woman of colour in america. For me my empathy didn't waver because realistically for such an unrealistic scenario to occur something deeply troubled or wrong would have happened to emma. I could not fully engage with the film because i could not move past Emma's unknown why. What was interesting to watch was Rachel's immediate move past it and Charlie's soon after getting only thin answers. The film depicts and recreates the position of black& biracial women, whereby our interiority is dismissed by both lovers and friends and audiences at large.