Bright star: Natalie Abbott in ‘The Deb’.
THE DEB ***1/2 (121 minutes) M
Having established herself as a comic actress with considerable appeal – a few duds aside, of course – Rebel Wilson proves with the bright musical comedy The Deb that she’s a dab hand at directing, adapting the 2023 stage musical by Meg Washington and Hannah Reilly into an uplifting, highly energetic big-screen soiree.
After a rebellious online gesture, private school glamourous, privileged, device-addicted IT Girl Maeve (Charlotte MacInnes) is sent to the country to stay with her contrasting cousin Taylah (Natalie Abbott), a cheery, plus-size teen living a happy farm life, blissfully unaware that her mayor-father (Shane Jacobson) is struggling to keep the drought-stricken town on Dunburn from going under.
Pacy, full of laughs and crammed with top musical numbers and gags about digital culture, the film dutifully follows the traditional contours of classic musical comedies with topsy-turvy twists and redemptive character arcs.
It’s a really accomplished, winning piece of entertainment, splendidly shot and edited, boasting a positive vibe and wonderfully fizzy performances.
So, what a pity that, in a wholly unfortunate turn of events, the film, made in 2024, has been plagued by legal troubles.
It’s a real mess that has marred what should have been a slam-dunk.
You can read about it here.
THE DRAMA **** (105 minutes) MA
We’ve all been there, saying that one thing you can’t un-say, causing a ripple effect you can’t control.
A common, humiliating experience, it receives a bleakly humourous going over in The Drama, wherein the wedding plans of a happily engaged couple go belly-up when one of them says something they should have kept buried.
While taste testing their reception menu, Emma (Zendaya) and Charlie (Robert Pattinson) engage in a game with their close friends Rachel (Alana Haim) and Mike (Mamoudou Athie) where each reveals the worst thing they ever did. Uninhibited by too much wine, the truth flows too freely until a boundary is breached.
The film plays like an ambling romance up until that killer scene – then everybody’s idea of normal is turned on its head as the old maxim about whether you can ever really know somebody is put through the ringer.
Blessed with top-shelf performances, especially from Haim, Zendaya and Pattinson – now light years removed from his Twilight legacy – it’s a compelling, well-thought through, morally complex chamber piece that confronts a host of hot-button topics, not the least of which is the nature of psychosis.
Gratefully, the film’s ever-tightening narrative is tempered with some well-judged humour as the inevitable chain of cause-and-effect runs its course through the lives of its hapless characters who no doubt wish they’d kept their traps shut.