DRAMA- Strained Drama but Terrific Acting Zendaya and Robert Pattison

The 2006 film DRAMA now screening is testament to what good acting can do to a script that leaves legitimacy at the door. The always captivating Zendaya stars as Emma and the bankable Robert Pattison as Charlie. This rom/com has a charming start where Charlie hits on Emma in a coffee shop by claiming he was taken by the book she's reading. His clumsy overtures are ignored until Emma turns to face him and is startled to see he's been speaking to her. She tells him she's deaf in her right ear. He's so flummoxed Emma offers him a chance to try the encounter again. Next the two are on a dinner date where Emma tries to discuss the novel and Charlie owns up to never having read it and just wanted to meet her. Emma accepts his good natured apology and the relationship flourishes from them into an enviable full blown romance (as is their apartment replete with circular staircase and floor to ceiling windows).  The perfect couple becomes engaged. Charlie's best friend Mike (an endearing Mamodou Athie) and his wife, Rachel (a tour-de-force Alana Haim) gather to taste test wines for the wedding. As they imbibe overtime, the married couple engage in everyone sharing "the worst thing you've ever done." While the sharing is embarrassing,  Emma is the last to share. Her's is a whopper. In high school she had seriously contemplated shooting up her school. This obviously shocking reveal is new to her new fiancee. Rachel has plenty deplorable expletives to say! Emma's responds by regurgitating everything on the table ending the evening leaving a lot of unfinished business between the two love birds. Emma does explain what her torment was like back then to Charlie. "I only thought about it and didn't go through with it." Charlie revisits some of Emma's explosive behaviors and is unsure whether they are as made for each other as before. The wedding photo shoot is a hoot with feigned smiles and stiffness and the wedding toasts are uproarious. The acting is so captivating all round it makes this dilemma more of an entertaining drama than it's cut out to be. If only the two would sit down and rehash their concerns instead of Charlie harboring doubts and acting out, things would work no doubt . Still, the film is a captivating, guilty pleasure but not one anyone would want to try over again.