By Xan Bero
On April 3rd popular indie film company A24 released their highly anticipated film The Drama starring Robert Pattinson and Zendaya. The duo plays the roles of a couple Charlie and Emma as they are preparing for their wedding. Once shocking and unexpected news surfaces days before the wedding, tensions become high and begin to impact their plans.
The Drama, both set and filmed in Boston, features many iconic locations Bostonians are all too familiar with. To start, the Boston Common/Garden appears frequently in the film, when filming took place in Fall of 2024, locals reported sightings of Zendaya and Robert Pattinson all around the area sending fans on walks around the Common in hopes to spot the action taking place. The Common is one of many notable Boston locations, even the MBTA makes a cameo.
Filming Locations
The beginning of the film takes place at the Copley square Tatte where the couple has their so-called “meet-cute” and was actually filmed there. This is not a prominent location in the film however, the apartment the couple lives in is featured multiple times and is an actual Boston apartment. Production designer Zosia Mackenzie revealed that the location “is very much real and is a historic 1800s brownstone in the South End neighborhood.”
A24 even created a website to market the film as if it were a real wedding. On this website there is a section of “Things to Do in Boston” which includes dining and entertainment locations. Some of these locations are included in the film and some of them are the inspiration for their fictional locations.
Charlie works at “Cambridge Art Museum” which is a fictional location based off the Harvard Art Museums and filmed at the Addison Gallery of American Art in Andover, Massachusetts which is about a 30 minute drive from Boston.The website also gives a shoutout to the Museum of Fine Arts stating it is “Charlie’s favorite museum”. Other entertainment locations they listed include Brattle Book Shop, Seven Stars bookstore, and the Somerville Theater (which also happens to be showing the film in 35mm).
The Seven Stars bookstore is also a location they used for filming. It is a used bookstore in Cambridge right of the Central stop on the red line. The scene shows the couple casually browsing for books while discussing the contents of the speeches for their wedding. This scene is in a series of scenes before the revelation that puts a damper on their wedding planning. Another scene that happens during this time is Emma at brunch with her friends which was filmed at Cafe Bonjour in downtown Boston. This is a popular brunch spot for both locals and tourists.
Moving onto the wedding scene, along with the wine tasting, those scenes were shot at Turner Hill Golf Club in Ipswich Massachusetts. This location is about 45 minutes outside of Boston and definitely looks a lot more like rural Massachusetts but still follows the same aesthetic as the rest of the scenery. The final notable scene takes place at Andy’s Diner in Cambridge where at the time of filming, locals noticed signs saying a film production had briefly shut down the establishment.
According to the director Kristoffer Borgli “Shooting the movie in Boston and Cambridge made sense because it feels intimate, historic, academic, and human in scale, rather than sprawling American metropolis,” Oftentimes when films are set in a location, they are filmed elsewhere. The Drama being set and filmed in Boston feels realistic and more authentic.
According to The Boston Globe, the production team spent some time in Boston and Cambridge trying to figure out how the fictional couple would live. Zosia Mackenzie stated “In some ways, we’re not so dissimilar from the characters. We all work in the arts and we’re a similar age. So we got to experience it both for ourselves and for them.” Which adds to the authenticity of the filmmaking process.
In a discussion about Andy’s Diner, Mackenzie told The Boston Globe “I walked in and was like, ‘Oh my God, yes. This is it, It’s a total time capsule. It’s got that authentic ‘50s, ‘60s aesthetic with swiveling bar stools and vinyl booths and brick walls. It’s very untouched, and it feels very local and very unpretentious — which is why I think Zendaya’s character really likes it.”
Overall, the aesthetic of this film feels very Boston and New England in general. With the niche bookshops and diners that tourists and locals alike enjoy.
