Summary
- The Drama, A24’s dark rom-com starring Zendaya and Robert Pattinson, features a twist in which Zendaya’s character confesses a secret — shocking early audiences ahead of its April 3 release.
- Tom Mauser, whose son Daniel was killed in the 1999 Columbine massacre, has publicly condemned the film, calling the twist “awful” and accusing it of “humanizing” and “normalizing” school shooters.
- Mauser also criticized Zendaya’s appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! where he felt she didn’t treat the twist with adequate gravity; A24 has not yet commented.
A24 knows how to sell a mystery. The studio has been marketing The Drama — its buzzy new film starring Zendaya and Robert Pattinson — as a dark, wedding-themed romantic comedy with a secret at its center. Turns out, that secret is a lot heavier than audiences were prepared for.
⚠️ Major spoilers ahead for The Drama, in theaters April 3.
The film reveals that Zendaya’s character confesses she once planned a school shooting but never carried it out. Specifically, in the movie, Zendaya’s character Emma confesses to her fiancé, Pattinson’s character Charlie, and their friends that she once planned a high school shooting but never went through with it. That confession — dropped during what plays out as a parlor game — is the twist that’s been rattling early viewers and spreading rapidly online before the film even opens.
Now it’s drawn the attention of someone with a very personal stake in the subject matter.
Tom Mauser, whose son Daniel Mauser was shot and killed among 13 others in the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School, told TMZ that he is disgusted by the movie’s twist. Mauser, who has spent the last 25 years as one of the country’s most prominent gun reform advocates, didn’t mince words. He told the outlet that it is “awful” to use the serious subject as a plot device in a romantic comedy, saying the movie “humanizes” killers and “normalizes” school shootings.
He was also “completely floored” that anyone would think a school shooting would be a good fit for a romantic comedy, even a dark one.
The backlash doesn’t stop with the film itself. Mauser was particularly upset about Zendaya’s March 16 appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, in which he said she did not treat what she called the “big twist” with enough gravity.
On that episode, Zendaya told Kimmel: “I really hope that people don’t spoil it for each other so they’re allowed to go into it just unknowing and really experience the drama.” When Kimmel noted, “I could see this movie causing a lot of problems for a lot of people in their personal lives,” Zendaya responded: “Those conversations can go many ways.”
For Mauser, that response felt like a brush-off. He thought she was laughing off the twist, as Jimmy seemed to be taking how it would impact some viewers much more seriously.
To be fair to the film, Zendaya’s character did not go through with the shooting, and mass violence is not depicted in the film. And Mauser has made clear he’s not painting everyone who’s ever had dark thoughts with the same brush. He doesn’t think anyone who has ever considered violence, but not gone through with it, should be condemned — on the contrary, he’s encouraging anyone who has had these ideations to go talk it out with a therapist. However, Mauser doesn’t want it to be used for entertainment.
That’s a meaningful distinction. But it doesn’t make the conversation any less charged.
The Drama, written and directed by Kristoffer Borgli, has largely kept its plotline under wraps, apart from the loose premise that a dark secret is unveiled days before a couple is due to get married, which makes the other reconsider everything about their relationship. That vagueness was clearly intentional — and savvy, from a marketing standpoint. But it’s also what’s made the twist feel like such a gut punch to people who stumbled into early screenings without warning.
Zendaya herself said on Kimmel: “What’s difficult about even talking about the movie is there are so many different genres in the film. It is a romantic comedy in many ways but it’s also a drama. Everybody has their own kind of feelings leaving the theatre, especially with the big twist. There’s so many conversations that are had after you watch it.”
That’s probably the most accurate description of where things stand right now. The film is already generating exactly the kind of divided, emotionally raw conversation its title promises — and it hasn’t even opened yet.
The twist had circulated online ahead of the film’s release, prompting backlash from those directly affected by real-life tragedies. One Reddit commenter captured the stakes plainly: “Wow this is all very good to know bc I was planning to see it but I recently survived a mass shooting on my campus and I definitely cannot handle that as a plot point yet.”
A24 has not yet responded to requests for comment. The Drama opens in theaters on April 3.
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