Who Is More To Blame? Reflections Of Thoughtcrime In 'The Drama'
- Luiza Helena Britton
- 8 hours ago
- 4 min read
The philosophical question, “Is a crime defined by the act itself, or by the mind that conceived it?” anchors The Drama (2026). Directed by Kristoffer Borgli and starring Zendaya and Robert Pattinson as Emma and Charlie, the film follows a couple’s shocking discovery before their wedding. Through escalating tension, uneasy confrontations, and characters driven by anxiety and obscured intentions, the film examines whether intentional harm is morally worse than impulsive harm, and how it's further complicated by social bias.
The idea of “thoughtcrime”, first introduced in 1984 by George Orwell, provides a useful lens. Thoughtcrime refers to the punishment of individuals for unorthodox thoughts rather than actions, treating deviant beliefs as moral failures. In The Drama, this idea becomes the focal point during a confessional dinner scene, where Emma, Charlie and their friends reveal their worst past actions. Emma admits that, as a teenager, she fantasised about committing a school shooting. Although never acted upon, her admission is met with visible discomfort and moral condemnation. In contrast, Charlie’s cyberbullying of a classmate, serious enough to drive the victim’s family to relocate, and Rachel’s far more disturbing act of abandoning a disabled child in the woods are met with less scrutiny. This imbalance is striking: imagined violence provokes more outrage than enacted violence.
Emma’s “crime” is premeditated. The film reinforces this through fragmented flashbacks showing her as isolated, angry and rehearsing her manifesto that never comes to pass. These sequences invite the audience to perceive her angst as dangerous. Yet Borgli complicates this by placing these revelations after we have come to know Emma as empathetic, composed and lovable. Zendaya plays her with restraint, neither monstrous nor erratic, but quietly wounded and aware of how others now reinterpret her character. Emma becomes a figure of thoughtcrime: condemned not for harm done, but for harm imagined. Crucially, that harm never materialises, as it instead turns inwards to damage her reputation, relationships and most importantly, her hearing, seen through shots of her ear bleeding. Her partial deafness serves as a reminder of her immoral thoughts.
This inward collapse is symbolised through the fictional novel ‘The Damage’, which first brings Emma and Charlie together. The title prophesies the destruction Emma once conceived for her classmates, and later defines her social reality. The reactions from those around her, particularly Rachel's subtly racialised assumptions, reveal how moral judgment can entangle with prejudice. Emma's thoughts are not only treated as dangerous but also indicative of who she is, despite all evidence of change and years passed.
Charlie embodies impulsive harm. His confession feels almost spurred to fit in, as though offered to survive the social ritual rather than to reveal the truth. Charlie neither knows who his future wife to be is, nor himself. However, the real damage unfolds in the present. His actions throughout the film, including cheating on Emma, implicating colleagues in lies, and escalating conflict, are all reactive and emotionally driven. Unlike Emma, his acts aren’t planned, but enacted. Therefore, Charlie’s “crime” is not a single act but an accumulation, leading to emotional and physical chaos at the wedding.
There is an underlying hypocrisy in how both characters are judged. Charlie’s behaviour is more easily rationalised, softened by charisma (helped in no part by Pattinson’s performance), which invites sympathy even at his worst. As a white male protagonist, he is afforded narrative plot armour, where his flaws are contextualised and humanised. Meanwhile, Emma is reduced to her past. The audience, like the characters, is forced to confront its own complicity in this imbalance.
The tension is solidified by the film’s mirror imagery. Early on, Emma asks Charlie what he thinks about the mirrors in ‘The Damage’, a question that becomes increasingly literal. Emma holds up a mirror, asking Charlie: What does he see? This evolves into the characters reflecting as converging figures - both implicit in harm, but redeemed by shame. By the film’s conclusion, Charlie mirrors Emma’s position of isolation and moral compromise, and is forced into self-recognition. Nevertheless, in this mutual understanding, the distinction between intention and impulse erodes, as both characters reach the same ending - the need for accountability. Emma extends forgiveness, offering him the same grace she received as a teenager. In this moment, the film suggests a possibility: understanding rather than condemnation may be the more difficult moral act.
In the end, The Drama resists a simple answer. If intention alone is worse, Emma is guilty. If harm is measured by consequence, Charlie fails more greatly in that regard. Thoughtcrime suggests that dangerous ideas themselves are a form of wrongdoing, but Borgli questions whether we can trust these frameworks to make such judgments. Especially in a world where the perception of morality is more ambiguous each day, the line between thinking and acting becomes blurred. Can we forgive people for their hateful thoughts or only for what they did? No resolution is sought, but The Drama exposes something more uncomfortable: what we choose to forgive and refuse reveals more about our capacity to justify harm than the crime itself.
Edited by Lara Walsh, Co-Film & TV Editor
