If you want to avoid tough conversations with your date after seeing A24’s divisive new movie, “The Drama,” one easy diversion is to point out all the local spots where its stars Zendaya and Robert Pattinson filmed scenes.
The film opens with a meet-cute between main characters Emma and Charlie at the Tatte location in Copley Square. From there, their story travels north with key scenes filmed at The Dance Complex and Seven Stars in Central Square, and Dear Annie (disguised as a flower shop) and Andy’s Diner near Porter Square.
In Cambridge, where Emma and Charlie live, local moviegoers have enjoyed seeing their favorite places as the backdrop for A24’s latest discourse-generator.
Best friends Tiago Xavier and Bella Morelli, who live in Malden and Everett, saw the movie when it was released. In the film’s opening scene, they recognized Tatte. But the location that really excited them was the New Age bookstore, Seven Stars.
“We recognized it immediately,” said Morelli. “We were, like, screaming in the movie theater.”
The delight of spotting their local haunts hasn’t dissipated. On a warm Saturday in April, the two stopped by Seven Stars. Xavier asked Morelli to take a photo of him.
“Wow, Zendaya was right here at this spot,” he said. “So cool.”
Xavier used to work at Walgreens, about a block away, and would visit the shop when he worked in the area.
The director and writer of “The Drama” visited before filming began locally in 2024 and, according to owner Stuart Weinberg, he liked the shop’s “visual element, the way things were framed.”
Another fan of Seven Stars? Kristoffer Borgli.
After representatives from A24 approached Weinberg about using the shop for filming, Weinberg watched two of Borgli’s films, “Dream Scenario” and “Sick of Myself,” and found that the admiration was mutual. Impressed with Borgli’s work, Weinberg agreed to shut down his shop for a day for filming.
Production designers took down the thangkas hanging on the walls and cleared the crystals from the counter. The shop that appears in the movie has a slightly different ambience than the Seven Stars, but it was recognizable enough for Xavier and Morelli.
Weinberg says the crew was professional and he was “compensated nicely” for use of the space. Additionally, the A24 marketing team, known for its creative campaigns, featured Seven Stars in a mock wedding website to generate interest in the movie.
Another local bookstore was tapped, too.
The Katherine Small Gallery, in Somerville, was scouted as a potential filming location for the film. While the petite gallery and graphic design bookstore was ultimately not used, its owner Michael Russem, says the film’s production designer bought artwork and books from the gallery’s collection and featured them in the film. The gallery also was listed on the wedding website in a list of “Things to Do in Boston.”
With all the locally-shot scenes, did “The Drama” feel distinctly Bostonian or Cantabrigian?
Weinberg says no, “it was just an urban venue.”
And Russem agrees. “I feel like the movie could have been anywhere,” he said. “Anyone who’s not from the immediate area would not have recognized the overwhelming majority of these locations.”
Although the film barely references Boston or Cambridge directly, its setting doesn’t feel entirely coincidental.
In “The Drama,” (don’t worry, no spoilers) Emma and Charlie are engaged to be married and their relationship is tested when Emma reveals a secret about her past. This secret is shocking, in part, because it doesn’t comport with her current Cambridge life, where she and Charlie live in a beautiful apartment, wear Harvard t-shirts, and subscribe to Harper’s Magazine.
Even if the camera never zooms in on a Welcome To Cambridge sign, these subtle placesetters convey characters who are – by all appearances – stable, educated and cultured.
“I feel like the location ties in with the aesthetic of the characters and it helps with the character development,” said movie fan Morelli. Plus, Charlie’s career as an art museum curator and Emma’s as a literary editor seemed appropriate, she said. “Because they have those jobs, it’s fitting that they would live in [the Boston area.]”
And how realistic is Borgli’s depiction of Emma and Charlie’s tastes?
“Museum curators don’t tend to come here and literary editors don’t tend to come here either,” said Russem of his gallery on Beacon Street. “But it’s nice that in a fantasy world, this is a place that they would go.”
Xavier and Morelli didn’t recognize every local setting in “The Drama.” They didn’t, for example, know of Andy’s Diner, despite it being in business on Massachusetts Avenue for nearly 70 years.
Can a movie make you see what’s always been there?
“We’ll have to go there,” Xavier said to Morelli, who emphatically agreed.
A stronger
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