Hollywood released a dark romantic comedy that includes a character who reveals she once planned a mass shooting but did not carry it out, and March for Our Lives publicly criticized the film and its marketing for not making gun control the center of attention.
Hollywood loves guns as props, not as political positions, and most films use them to tell a story rather than deliver a policy screed. The new A24 picture has a twist that touches on a school shooting plotline, and that alone provoked a loud reaction from March for Our Lives. The group says the marketing is “deeply misaligned” with the film’s subject matter and felt obliged to post a disclaimer ahead of the premiere.
Ahead of last night’s premiere of Kristoffer Borgli‘s The Drama, gun violence prevention organization March for Our Lives released a statement calling out the A24 dark romantic comedy’s “deeply misaligned” marketing campaign.
On Thursday, the student-led advocacy group posted a disclaimer to Instagram, noting that while the org didn’t want to spoil the film’s premise, it had the obligation to discuss the themes presented in the Zendaya and Robert Pattinson two-hander. While much of the press tour has side-stepped conversation regarding its subject matter, what has been billed as the film’s “twist” reveals itself early on in the runtime, as Zendaya’s bride-to-be Emma reveals the worst thing she’s ever done is orchestrate a mass shooting at her school — though she did not go through with it.
The plot point is simple: a character admits she once planned to commit a massacre, she watched another tragedy unfold, and ultimately she did not go through with it and became an advocate rather than a perpetrator. That is a dramatic arc, not a policy paper, and treating it as an instruction manual for legislation misunderstands how storytelling works. March for Our Lives wants the movie to center their agenda even when the character’s path is away from violence and toward remorse.
What’s striking is the double standard. When a film or actor critiques gun rights, activists praise it for raising awareness, but when a film includes nuance and character change, the critics claim the work is insufficient. This is not about safety or facts, it’s about narrative control. If a character regrets a planned crime and chooses activism, that complexity apparently offends those who prefer simpler messaging.
Pro-gun Americans are often painted as extremists in Hollywood’s shorthand, and then expected to accept one-sided portrayals as cultural truth. That expectation is unfair and hypocritical when the same activists demand all stories conform to a specific political lesson. Storytelling can explore motives, consequences, and redemption without being a billboard for any single policy position.
March for Our Lives demanding the film be more explicitly anti-gun shows how thin tolerance for nuance has gotten in the debate. The group wants outrage rather than discussion, and it sees any deviation from total focus on gun control as a failure. That stance tends to shut down conversation rather than encourage it, which ironically makes it harder to address real problems in public safety and mental health.
Hollywood will keep making films that use guns as part of a plot because guns are part of real life and dramatic stakes. Filmmakers are allowed to choose how much they want to weigh policy in their art, and audiences are allowed to decide what matters to them. Expecting every story to serve as a platform for a political movement turns cinema into a nonstop PSA and weakens the power of genuine creative risk.
It is reasonable to criticize a movie if it glorifies violence or handles trauma carelessly, but it is also reasonable to push back when advocates demand monopoly over how stories can be told. The film at issue appears to portray remorse and a pivot away from violence, which is another kind of message about consequences and responsibility. Demanding that every work of fiction be rewritten into a policy tract undermines artistic freedom and narrows public discourse.
The louder lesson here is cultural: activists will police narratives that don’t match their preferred script, and Hollywood will keep making stories that don’t always mirror activist talking points. That friction is messy but unavoidable, and it’s up to viewers to sift through publicity and decide what a film really says. Meanwhile, the conversation about guns, mental health, and media will continue, and it should include nuance, not just uniform outrage.
