Zendaya and Robert Pattinson’s new movie was sold with glossy romance energy, but the conversation has turned hard. The backlash around The Drama picked up after reports revealed a school shooting plot point at the center of the story. That reaction grew even louder after Tom Mauser, whose son Daniel was killed in the 1999 Columbine massacre, told TMZ he found the premise appalling. Now the film is drawing less curiosity for its stars and more scrutiny for the choice behind its darkest turn. That shift has changed the mood around the release before many moviegoers have even bought a ticket.
Why the backlash hit so fast
The strongest criticism has not focused only on the twist itself. It has centered on the gap between the movie’s breezy marketing and the subject it actually uses. People and Business Insider both reported that the film was promoted in a much lighter way before viewers learned about the school shooting confession in Zendaya’s character arc. That mismatch is what many critics, survivors, and advocacy voices now see as the real problem.
Tom Mauser’s reaction gave that criticism a much sharper edge. He told TMZ he could not understand why filmmakers would use this kind of scenario inside a film framed so casually. His anger also landed because he has spent years in public life as a gun reform advocate after Columbine. Once his comments spread, the movie stopped looking like a risky curveball and started looking tone-deaf to many readers online.
The Drama backlash gets bigger
The film’s rollout only added fuel. Reviews and spoiler-heavy write-ups from major outlets described the movie as a relationship drama that pivots on Zendaya’s character admitting she once planned a school shooting as a teen, though she did not carry it out. The Washington Post, Vanity Fair, and The Guardian all noted that the reveal changes the entire emotional frame of the movie. That is a tough swing for audiences who expected a strange but stylish romance.
Even so, the backlash is not all coming from one side. Some critics argue the movie is trying to ask whether a person should be defined forever by violent thoughts from adolescence. Others say that question gets buried once the marketing choice enters the room. In practice, the debate now seems less about nuance and more about whether the film handled a painful topic with enough care.
A24 now faces the harder question
That leaves A24 with a messier release story than expected. Instead of chatter about chemistry, wedding chaos, or another sharp Zendaya performance, the film is now tied to an argument over judgment and responsibility. March for Our Lives also criticized the marketing, while People reported support for that criticism from Aly & AJ, who survived a 2022 mass shooting. At this point, the issue is no longer whether the twist shocks people. It is whether the movie earned the right to use it at all.
