The Drama (2026) - Kristoffer Borgli

It’s nice to meet you, Charlie.

It’s nice to meet you, Emma.

For my money, Robert Pattinson is the most consistently interesting and compelling actor of his generation. Sometime after getting all that Twilight cash, he seemingly decided to just do whatever he wants and he’s made increasingly excellent choices since then and given great performances in a staggering variety of movies. So I’m always down to check out what he’s doing next. So I went into this movie pretty and I’m glad I did.

Charlie and Emma, played by Pattinson and Zendaya, are a young couple counting down the days until their wedding; they seem genuinely in love and genuinely happy. And then, in a decision that can only be called ill-advised, they and a couple of their friends decide it would be fun to get a little drunk and share the worst things they’ve ever done. No spoilers from me on these revelations, but suffice it to say that Emma’s got a banger of a secret and suddenly, mere days before their wedding, Charlie’s in a real tail-spin, not sure what to think about the sweet girl he thought he knew and how to reconcile that with the secret she shared.

What follows is an increasingly unhinged, pitch-black comedy of unraveling. We get to watch Charlie and Emma fall apart as individuals and also fall apart as a couple and, for a fun bonus, their little friend group also may never recover. So, it’s a kind of exploration of all the ways people and relationships can come unglued when assumptions and expectations are shattered in a surprising way. The script is razor sharp and incredibly funny. The cast is really excellent. Pattinson is, as always, brilliant; he’s a bit awkward at the best of times and the way he meltsdown into a kind of neurotic mania is nothing short of amazing. Zendaya gives probably her best performance to date here; and I’m not a hater, I’ve liked her in plenty of other things. But here, she’s asked to kind of be the wounded heart of the movie and she finds real pain amidst the gruesome comedy. Alana Haim and Mamadou Athie are both really great as the friends who spur the ill advised admissions. Alana Haim in particular hits some new heights as a performer. Prior to this she’s certainly been charismatic and good enough in her movies, but she really lets it loose with this one and she’s fantastic. Hailey Benton Gates has a small, but very funny, supporting role as a tightly wound co-worker of Charlie’s. And I have to throw props to Jeremy Levick, an actor who shows up as a wedding DJ. He’s in exactly one scene, less than five minutes of the movie, but he’s a perfect example of the old “no small parts” adage. He understands the tone writer-director Kristoffer Borgli is going for as well as anybody here does and he just knocks his single scene appearance right out of the park with some gut-bustingly funny line deliveries.

I gather there’s been some controversy around the movie and, sure, it’s a movie that intends to be provocative in its choice of subject matter and the way it mines that subject matter for cringey humor. But ultimately I felt like the movie ended up doing what it set out to do. It’s a cringe-inducingly awkward, darkly funny movie and, genuinely, it’s not as crushingly nihilistic or as shallow as some people have made it out to be. It won’t be to everyone’s tastes, that’s for sure. But, man, it worked for me. 4 stars.

tl;dr – a fantastic cast brings a caustically funny and pitch black script to life in this provocative and ultimately absolutely exhilarating thrill ride of a movie. 4 stars.

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A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019) - Marielle Heller

Someone hurt my friend Lloyd and not just on his face. He is having a hard time forgiving the person who hurt him. Do you . . . do you know what that means? To forgive? It’s a decision we make to release a person from the feelings of anger we have at them. It’s strange, but sometimes it’s hardest of all to forgive someone we love.

I’ll admit that I went into this movie with some trepidation. It isn’t that I was resistant to a movie about Fred Rogers, a genuinely great human being. It was, I think, that I was afraid the film would take the story of a fascinating person and turn him into a saintly cariacature in service of a saccharine and cheesy film. The casting of Tom Hanks as Mr. Rogers was also of some concern. I love Hanks in the right role and he’s definitely a charismatic and warm actor. But he’s also an actor who can shade into being one note at times and, let’s face it, sometimes a bit cornball. He’s an actor that I could foresee giving an overly reverent and stiff performance.

Thankfully, all of my fears turned out to be for naught and A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood is a tonally perfect, absolutely precise masterpiece that tells a moving and emotional story without ever feeling maudlin or manipulative. The film does a lot of really smart things. First and foremost is the way it positions Fred Rogers. He’s not the main character of the film; the main character is actually, Lloyd Vogel, a journalist assigned to write a piece about Mr. Rogers, a journalist who goes into the process assuming that he’ll find that Fred Rogers isn’t the genial lovable guy he seems to be. But he’s also a man that is deeply and profoundly wounded by his relationship with his father. Matthew Rhys plays the part with an incredible sensitivity and empathy; he brings real sorrow and pathos to the character. Mr. Rogers is really kind of the antagonist of the film. The movie posits that Fred Rogers was a kind of heat-seeking missile that, once let into your life, would find your secret pain and heal you of it, whether you wanted him to or not. Vogel doesn’t want to forgive his father, doesn’t want to get past his anger and his hurt; to do so, he thinks, would be to excuse the terrible things his father did. And so he wants desperately to hold onto his misery and his cynicism. But Fred Rogers, a man who genuinely loves people out of a heart of compassion and empathy, simply will not let him do it. The very existence of a man like Fred Rogers threatens the walls he’s built to keep himself hardened and suffering. And when Rogers simply offers Lloyd what he seems to offer to everyone, unconditional love and support, that light begins to strip away Lloyd’s anger and bitterness in a process that is both necessary and deeply painful.

Director Marielle Heller is an interesting choice for the film and she brings some of her signature surreal touches to the film at exactly the right moments. She uses these moments of seeming magic to underline the emotion and to allow us to sit in the purity of Rogers’ philosophy and integrity. In a scene where Rogers encourages Lloyd to simply pause and sit in silence for a moment of contemplation, Heller stops the entire restaurant where the scene is taking place and it’s a moment of quiet beauty that is somehow sacred. I found myself holding my breath in that scene and I haven’t been able to shake the feeling of sadness and empathy and love that scene evoked in me. And, as good as Rhys is, the film certainly wouldn’t have worked if Hanks’ performance hadn’t worked. But it does. Hanks finds real humanity in Rogers; he doesn’t try to bring out a hidden dark side, but he does make us feel his humanity. Rogers is a kind of saint, but he never feels one note or shallow. He’s a complex man but also a good one; Hanks threads that needle perfectly. Chris Cooper is also really excellent as Lloyd’s estranged father. He brings real regret to the character; he’s genuinely pained by the pain he’s caused, but he’s also confused and angry himself, with no idea how to mend the relationship with his son.

Ultimately, it’s just a beautiful film, really smartly written and deeply empathetic. It feels worthy of the man himself and I found it to be a great emotional journey. There were many pitfalls here and every time the movie has the chance of putting its foot wrong, it just gracefully manages to land exactly right. Can’t recommend it highly enough. 4 stars.

tl;dr – beautiful and emotional movie avoids becoming maudlin or cheesy and ends up being profoundly moving thanks to a smart script, great direction and great performances. 4 stars.

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