MQFF 2021 Film Review: Dramarama
Images courtesy of Melbourne Queer Film Festival.
Director Jonathon Wysocki’s Dramarama set wistfully in 1994, tells the ever-bittersweet story of a group of teenagers, Gene, Ally, Rose, Claire and Oscar, as they have one final night together before they each part ways for college. What makes Dramarama interesting is that the kids in question here are the theatre kids. You know the ones, that group at school where one kid’s hair was constantly spray painted grey because they were playing an old man, and there was always the faint hum of a Sondheim classic whenever they were around. Focusing solely on the drama kids could potentially have resulted in the unpleasant experience of watching a bunch of Rachel Berrys running around for an hour and a half, but what Wysocki does so artfully is push his characters beyond the moniker of ‘theatre kids’ and expose the raw anxieties and feelings underneath.
The film begins with Gene, a currently closeted boy who has just decided to stop going to church, and questions whether he believes in God anymore. The intersection of friendship and faith in this film was very intriguing, if only for the fact that religion is a subject not often included in teen focused films. The faith and devotion Gene’s friends have make him afraid that if he came out, his friends might not accept him. In a conversation with his friend Oscar, Gene says that he feels judged when Oscar tells him he prays for him. This is at a point in the film where the dynamic of the group is beginning to break down and disintegrate. After the kids make up and come back together, Gene can see that his friends will accept him no matter what he does, and that their faith isn’t a weapon they will use to harm him. It rather becomes their way of keeping him in their thoughts and hearts, by thinking of him in prayer. This theme alone endears the kids to the audience, but how Wysocki really coaxes you into falling in love with them is by always having you laugh with the kids, and never at them.
Wysocki puts several moments in his films where, ordinarily in any other teen flick, the theatre kids would have been the butt of the joke. Rose’s eccentric murder mystery themed going-away party for instance, in any other film would usually be played for laughs at her expense. But in Dramarama the fun and enjoyment each kid has is in the dressing up and pretending. Each member comes fully decked out in a Victorian character costume; we have Rose as Ms. Havisham, complete with aged ghostly makeup, Claire as Alice, Ally as Dracula’s Mina, Oscar as Sherlock Holmes and Gene as Dr. Jekyl. The fun of the film comes not from viewing these kids as outsiders, which we later find out they always have been considered, but rather in them being free to safely express themselves and be over the top in a way that makes the entire film feel fizzy and light. In fact, the party momentum comes to a complete stop when JD, a high school drop out pizza guy comes over and ruins the fun. Suddenly through JD’s eyes, everything does seem a bit silly and childish. What was once a spirited party instantly becomes belaboured by the judgements of the outside world. The heart of the movie comes from moments such as this, when the kids stop pretending to be other characters, and start being vulnerable as themselves, and sharing the accompanying anxieties that always come from existing in the liminal space of ‘teendom’; that sticky time after school but before college, after childhood but before adulthood, where you have to start figuring out who you are without your high school friends.
This film feels like watching a beautiful setting sun, a moment that you wish you could hold onto forever, but you know that eventually you will have to let go. A poignant and highly charming film that has all the makings of a teen classic.
Dramarama is scheduled to play at the Melbourne Queer Film Festival running from the 18th to the 29th of November. Tickets are available now - click here for more info.