Dramarama

Dramarama (2020)

Writer, director: Jonathan Wysocki. Cast Zak Henri, Nico Greetham, Anna Grace Barlow, Megan Suri, Nick Pugliese, Danielle Kay

What a charming and unexpected little surprise this was!!!

The story centres around 5 high school friends who have their last night together (in fact a murder mystery party in costume) before each of them will have to leave the day after for college.After quite a frantic, unsettled (and unsettling) beginning with a bit too much background music, the film soon finds its feet, it calms down a bit and as it becomes more of a stage play (though never feels static or stuffy), it begins to show a definite John Hughes vibe (which made quite irresistible for kid like grown up in the 80s).

It’s a sort of rite-of-passage story which clearly owes a lot to films like “the Breakfast Club” with the so-called “rejected” group of kids who, during the course of the night, ends up learning about themselves, their friends and essentially they grow up. Even if the script is at times slightly too over-written a bit too self-conscious (however smart these kids might be, some lines carry a bit too much experience-baggage), the magnificent ensemble cast makes even the most improbable dialogue work beautifully.Writer, producer and director Jonathan Wysocki handles their continuous changes of moods beautifully. One moment they kids are laughing their heads off, the way teenagers do, playing jokes on each other, talking by quoting lines from classic 80s and early 90s movies and being immature in general (a hilarious scene in which they swap movie titles with the word “fart”, “jurassic fart”, “silence of the farts” and so on), then they themselves arguing and fighting as if there was no tomorrow only to make peace again a few minutes later. They apologise, they cry, they hug and they carry on laughing on whatever the next idiotic thing is. The film perfectly captures what being a teenager is all about: the awkwardness, the laughters, the talk about sex, the inappropriate jokes, the spontaneous hugs among friends, the hopes for the future. You’re still la child most of the times but with brilliant and short moments of maturity filled with naive, unspoilt and often acute observations. A time when being friends means everything. And when towards the end of the film they will have to say goodbye to each other, a lump on your throat will remind you of all the times you’ve had to say goodbye to a a friend.

I don’t know if the film has a distribution yet (I saw this at the BFI Flare Festival) but I do hope it gets it and you’ll be able to see it too.