The Drama | 2026
- Locations |
- Boston, Massachusetts;
- Louisiana
- DIRECTOR |
- Kristoffer Borgli
What begins as a sweet romcom takes a sudden turn into something much more uncomfortable. Now forget the discomfort and discover all the smart bars, restaurants and local sites around Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts where the film was shot.
We begin in Boston in the bright airy coffee shop where nerdy Charlie (Robert Pattinson) gets chatting to Emma (Zendaya) by fibbing about loving the book she's reading. This is the Copley Square branch of Tatte Bakery & Cafe, 200 Clarendon Street,which you'll find at the foot of the John Hancock Tower.
The ruse may be a little cheesy but it works and Charlie soon finds himself having to bluff his way through a conversation about the merits of "Harper Ellison's The Damage" on a first date. The couple show their taste by choosing the drop-dead stylish wood-panelled surrounds of the Eastern Standard Kitchen, 775 Beacon Street, New England brasserie and cocktails in the Fenway district, west of the city centre.
We don't see a great deal of the cafe where Emma eagerly tells her more dubious friends about Charlie. It's a shame because this is Cafe Bonjour, 55 Temple Place, a small but really quite charming cafe.
Things turn out well and Charlie and Emma are a week away from their wedding. The bookshop in which they mooch around mulling over their vows and Charlie's speech, is Seven Stars Bookstore, 731 Massachusetts Avenue over in in Cambridge, northeast across the Charles River from Boston and only a few minutes by subway ( the "T"). Don't worry – it's not a plot point, but in real life the bookshop specialises in metaphysical literature and crystals.
Charlie works at the (fictitious) 'Cambridge Art Museum', where he inadvertently sets off the alarms while trying to impress Emma with a private nighttime tour. The museum is the Addison Gallery of American Art at 3 Chapel Avenue at Main Street in Andover, a town about 25 miles north of Boston. One of the most important collections of American art in the country, it houses works by great names like Sargent, Whistler, Edward Hopper, Georgia O’Keeffe and Jackson Pollock as well as more than 16,000 photographs spanning the history of American photography.
Emma works at the office of the equally fictitious 'Mission Publishing', which is Boston Architectural College, 320 Newbury Street, Boston.
With the nuptials looming, Emma has doubts about having the moves for their wedding dance professionally choreographed. The row of mirrors along the wall indicates this really is a dance studio. It's Dance Complex, on the top floor of the historic Odd Fellows Hall, 536 Massachusetts Avenue, in Cambridge
The odd furnishings are a reminder that the hall was originally built as a Masonic Temple, designed for secret meetings and arcane rituals.
It's at a planning evening and wine tasting that the story takes a darker turn. As the drinks flow, a seemingly harmless game of revealing the "worst thing I've ever done" with their married chums Mike (Mamoudou Athie) and Rachel (Alana Haim) – their Best Man and Maid of Honour – turns up a startling revelation.
The upscale wedding venue is the Mansion on Turner Hill (Turner Hill Golf Club), 251 Topsfield Road, part of the Crane Estate in Ipswich.
You may recognise its oversize fireplace from Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island, or the exterior as the mansion of devilish Jack Nicholson in The Witches of Eastwick. The estate has also been seen in 1987's Flowers in the Attic, The Next Karate Kid and the 2019 version of Little Women.
And, yes, it is a real wedding venue, if you're quite confident you have no secrets waiting to be revealed.
There's a deal of heart-searching and questions when Charlie and Emma return to the apartment they already share at 43 Union Park a 19th century brownstone off Tremont Street in Boston's South End.
Forced smiles as the pair rehearse wedding photos reveal the shadow now hanging over them. Happily, if you choose Other Tomorrows Photo Studio, 105 South Street, Boston, you'll appear a little more carefree than these two.
Likewise, the gloom is hard to disguise as they choose blooms for the approaching ceremony. For reasons not immediately apparent, this is not a flower shop. In fact, it's not a shop at all. The floral displays disguise a wine bar – Dear Annie, 1741 Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge. Still, an excuse for one more night out of exploration.
Every step now seems to compound their problems, including Charlie's very awkward encounter with Rachel's cousin Sam outside the Bank of America on Federal Street at the intersection with High Street, near South Station.
Nevertheless, the wedding goes ahead with the excruciatingly memorable reception held back at Turner Hill.
After all the fancy restaurants and bars, the final scene is more homely, over burgers at the casual Andy's Diner, 2030 Massachusetts Avenue, in Cambridge.
One final location away from the Boston area is 'Portside High School' attended by the younger Emma in flashbacks. This really is, as it's supposed to be, in Louisiana.
It's Riverdale Middle School, Riverdale Drive at Jefferson Highway, Jefferson, west of New Orleans, which you might have previously seen in the 2011 big-screen version of 21 Jump Street starring Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill.
