A BREAKDOWN of ALL Themes, Symbolism, & the Ending of The Drama

I read that Charlie spent the whole movie trying to “forgive Emma” while Emma forgave him the same night ..thus showing her empathy or her kindness.

Love this! great movie, also the part where they brushed off Charlie's cyber-bullying because, as a 14 year old, his brain wasn't fully formed, but with Emma's confession from her 15 yo past she was vilified as a monster. So many layers and probably worth a second watch

It truly irritated me that no one once thought about what she might be going through to have gotten to that point. Rachel immediately went to shaming her and was super ready to embarrass her at her own wedding

Funny thing that Charlie bullied a classmate and Emma was driven to planning a shooting through getting bullied.

The way it's presented, the other three have forgiven themselves for their "crimes" and downplay them. While Emma still feels shame and guilt.

I can’t believe nobody’s talking about the theme of white woman tears like come on

How is nobody talking about how Charlie cyberbullied a kid and his family into moving town? And how Rachel almost killed a disabled kid by locking them in the closet? They both actually commited a crime. While Emma is only guilty of thought crime but backed out without actually doing any harm. And she repented for it by becoming an activist.

I find myself interested in how the narrative choice to make Emma a near school shooter pushes Charles to change. The detail that most caught my eye is that Charles is the head curator at a museum. What does a curator do? They choose what to display and what not to display in order to present a tasteful image. We also know that Charles is a liar. A liar curates reality or truth. When we meet Charles, he’s writing his vows, curating the idealized image of Emma. After the secret is revealed, he has all these visions and recontextualizes memories. I believe he’s curating again, trying to make sense of this new information. He even re-writes and eventually deletes his vows. Charles really seems to care about image. The bare reality of who he is and how the world is is not something Charles is comfortable engaging with, so everything is filtered to be more palatable. I’m skeptical that bullying was his biggest transgression. I speculate that was his share because it was bad enough to barely count, but not bad enough to harm his image. He purposefully misconstrues the death of Emma’s friend in order to soften Rachel towards Emma’s past. He desperately seeks Misha’s approval. I think he loves Emma, but needs his love of her to not harm how he is perceived by others. He needs their permission. The wedding speech is the breaking of his curation. He’s finally honest and it shatters the image he’s made for himself. It’s only after his illusion has been broken and he’s been seen for the flawed person that he is that he is open to and understands how to love another flawed person. Charles falling in love with a person who has a deeply transgressive past is the push he needed to break free from his pattern of curation. Love, I think, requires a comfort with the bare reality of who you are and accepting the bare reality of who another person is. It’s not the act of curation the way we see in our social media society. It’s not the pursuit of the perfect self and the ideal partner; a distancing from flaws. It’s the opposite. It’s the warm embrace of flaw. As a viewer, I’m trying my best to find compassion for Rachel, as unlikable as I found her to be. I think that’s one of the messages in the movie. We’re going to have these emotional blockages that drive us to push people away – which creates the alienation that can be a contributing factor driving people to commit violent acts such as school shootings. Can we set down our judgements and find compassion?

I can't believe the photographer said she was going to shoot all those people...

I think you missed the point that Emma thought about doing something bad while Charlie and Rachel actually did very bad things that hurt other people but vindicated themselves while vilifying Emma. Also, Emma was quick to forgive Charlie’s recent indiscretion while he struggled to forgive something from years ago that she planned but never acted on. It’s the juxtaposition and hypocrisy that movie attempts to highlight.

Do you know what the most important part of being a DJ is? It's not the music.

Rachel’s confession was 100 times worse

Rachel was the villain. I got the feeling that she committed manslaughter and that the kid did die. She shrugged off the story’s conclusion that they eventually found the boy. But it didn’t seem authentic and she was smiling the whole time. What a sick person. She had no regrets. Emma on the other hand has empathy and did regret something that she DIDNT do.

Emma was the only person in that table that didn't actually get to do what she was thinking of doing + was the only one not downplaying it. This movie shows the irony of judgement between us

I love that you remembered and zoomed back to the dance rehearsal scene and the defense of performative art over Emma's suggestion that they dance like they do for real in real life. It echoed in my mind throughout the entire film because when she chose to be real about her dark past with a table full of performers she was crucified immediately rather than receiving any sliver of empathy. She could have said she also bullied others as a teenagers but she chose to be raw and honest and all of those around her immediately used her like a shield to help divert attention from the huge red flags they've buried and that they still carry in secrecy

"performative judgement" is such a good point

It felt crazy cuz why are we mad at someone for doing what a good person does? They were on a dark path, saw how it would affect everybody and altered course. What more could you ask for in a person? To me she IS the most empathetic person Charlie knows

To be honest I don’t think Charlie actually cyber bullied the kid. Looking at his character he continually tries to conform to the situation even if he can’t. The first time he met Emma he is trying to conform to her personality by claiming he enjoyed the book she was reading. In the scene where he confesses the worst thing he’s ever done it takes him a while to come up with something and even after that he walks it back saying maybe the kid just happened to move. I think in general this lack of doing anything “truly terrible” like everyone else makes it hard for him to understand Emma’s position. He loves her but logically can’t reason out her past and so I think it’s no surprise that in the scene with the co-worker he asks her before getting into the hypothetical what’s the worst thing she has ever done of which she admits is cheating. I think subconsciously he latches onto that idea so when he starts to cheat and almost goes all the way he can finally put himself on the same moral ground as Emma as well as understand her situation better. Obviously this is a terrible reason to cheat not that there is any good reason but it allows them both to get to the end of the wedding night and be able to move forward even if the road is going to be difficult.

It's really funny bc while I know this movie focus more on American audiences, as a foreign watcher I must say during my entire screening nobody seemed to care about Emma's secret. Mass shootings haunt Americans in a way that doesn't feel the same in other places. Pretty much everyone around was like "so what ? She didn't do it" when I watched so it's funny because it really felt like a big nonsense "Drama"

In interviews both Robert and Zendaya actually talked about not needing to tell partners everything - that you’re in love with the current version and people have a right to move on. Zendaya also noted that in a relationship you would want to have that space to do so if you choose though.