Echo Valley

Greetings again from the darkness. We should all be so fortunate to have a friend as loyal as Leslie, and we should strive to be wiser than Kate so that we don't ever have the need to test that friend's loyalty. Director Michael Pearce (ENCOUNTER, 2021) is working with a script from screenwriter Brad Ingelsby (the excellent "Mare of Easttown", OUT OF THE FURNACE, 2018), and a superb cast to deliver a thriller that offers both familiar territory and twists and turns in a film that is ultimately relatively entertaining to watch.

The film opens with a stunning overhead shot of a lifeless body floating in the middle of a tree-lined lake. We don't know who it is or the story of how it got there. Oscar winner Julianne Moore plays Kate, still in a grieving funk nine months after a tragic accident killed her wife Patty (Kristina Valada-Viars, "Chicago Med"), who is seen only in flashbacks and heard on saved voicemails. Kate manages to crawl from bed each morning and do just enough to keep her horses alive on the farm where her business is giving riding lessons. Since she's cancelled most of those lessons, she must grovel to her ex-husband (Kyle MacLachlan) so she can fix the sagging roof on her barn. The two argue about money, her state of mind, and their daughter ... whom dad describes as "sick".

It doesn't take long for us to understand how all the pieces of their argument fit together because daughter Claire (Sydney Sweeney, "The White Lotus", "Euphoria") shows up at the farm, and we learn that her mother Kate is the ultimate example of an enabler. Claire has a long-standing drug problem as well as the corresponding mental issues. She knows her mother can be manipulated into doing just about anything for her. It doesn't take long for a couple of other players to enter. Ryan (Edmund Duncan) is Claire's drug-addled boyfriend, and Jackie (the ubiquitous Domhnall Gleeson) is their compelling drug dealer ... one who is out about ten grand due to the idiocy of Claire and Ryan.

Once the dynamics are in place, the twists and turns begin - none of which will be detailed here. You should know that it's all pretty suspenseful provided you are able to overlook a bit of creative stretching from a storytelling perspective. Fiona Shaw plays Kate's bestie Leslie (as mentioned in the opening paragraph), and what comes across clearly here is that this group of actors definitely elevate the material to the point where we actually care what happens to Kate, Claire, and Leslie. Ms. Moore excels in her grief, in her role as (overly) dedicated mother, and as a shrewd independent. Ms. Sweeney goes against her usual glam role and flashes some pretty impressive emotional range, while Mr. Gleeson nails the opportunistic drug dealer. It's kind of hard not to notice that the males in the story are all various shades of scumbags, save for the detective near the end.

Cinematographer Benjamin Kracun (PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN, 2020) manages to capture both the beauty of the setting and the intensity and emotion of the personal interactions. Composer Jed Kurzel (SLOW WEST, 2015; THE BABDOOK, 2014) takes a unique approach to the score, preventing it from sounding like most suspense films. It seems probable that Mr. Ingelsby writing and Mr. Pearce's directing would have been better served in a limited series ... although this outstanding cast might not have happened. I found the film's ending somewhat less than satisfying, yet overall the entertainment value was fine.

The film will premiere globally on AppleTV+ on June 13, 2025.

Daughter is irremediably awful, overacted by Sydney Sweeney (even though she's a great actor I just didn't get into this role at all). The first half is just a torture show of bad daughter activities.

Movie picks up a bit in the last 2/3 but overall I just found the acting and characters flat and not really good enough to hold the screen. I get the point of the movie about grief and unconditional love bla bla bla, it just really didn't work for me.

The ending was pretty solid overall and this is an okay movie to kill a few hours, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. Overall ok in every way but that's it. Solid 5/10. The end.

Julianne Moore is one of the few working actresses with both the talent and name recognition to elevate any mid-budget movie into a relatively successful and engaging experience. Put her in an aesthetically pleasing house with hardships, and she'll deliver a moving performance full of emotional depth and layered moral quandaries.

There's some immersion-breaking Apple product placement-now a norm for films produced by giant tech companies-but "Echo Valley" remains a suspenseful thriller with minimal violence. It's at its best and original when focusing on the ominous mother-daughter dynamic between Julianne Moore and Sydney Sweeney, whose performances fully sell the premise.

I didn't think I was going to like Echo Valley. Early on, it felt like yet another somber character study about a sad, emotionally walled-off woman trudging through grief. I found myself getting impatient with Julianne Moore's character-too quiet, too clenched, too stuck. My gut reaction was, "Okay, we get it. You're broken. Move on already."

But by the time the credits rolled, I realized: that was the point.

What starts as a slow-burn drama about loss and trauma quietly transforms into a nuanced meditation on the seductive comfort of victimhood-and what it costs to escape it. Julianne Moore gives a tightly coiled performance, full of quiet anguish and understated strength. She doesn't play a victim so much as a woman who's learned to survive by keeping her pain close, and her joy at arm's length.

Domhnall Gleeson is chilling in his restraint, embodying what happens when you let victimhood rot into violence and detachment. And Kyle MacLachlan-who I assumed would be a major player when he appeared-gets barely two minutes of screen time. But those two minutes are pivotal. His character, with quiet stoicism and no shortage of reluctance, models what it looks like to move on. He becomes the counterpoint to Moore's emotional limbo-a living example of what it means to leave the valley, metaphorically and literally.

Sydney Sweeney, on the other hand, feels a bit too familiar in her role. While she hits the marks emotionally, the character felt too close to her performances in The White Lotus and other recent roles: another whiny, self-absorbed, emotionally combustible young woman who seems to confuse chaos with depth. At this point, it's less a character than a brand. She's talented, no question, but here, she's recycling.

Then there's Fiona Shaw-maybe the film's secret weapon. As the loyal friend and emotional ballast, she plays the role that holds everything together. She's not a moral compass in the preachy sense-she's just present, constant, human. The final montage (which oddly echoes the vibe of a heist movie epilogue) showcases Shaw's quiet complicity and grace. She doesn't need big speeches-she shows up. Always. And that's what makes her character land so well.

By the end, I didn't just feel satisfied-I felt subtly re-educated. Echo Valley asks its audience to do something rare these days: sit with discomfort, and reconsider their snap judgments. It's not flashy, it's not loud, but it lingers. It's a film about people trapped in their own narratives, and what it takes to quietly write a new one.

I came in annoyed. I left impressed.

Kate (Julianne Moore) is dealing with a personal tragedy while owning and training horses in Echo Valley, an isolated and picturesque place, when her daughter, Claire (Sydney Sweeney), arrives at her doorstep, frightened, trembling and covered in someone else's blood.

Right from the off the film promises to be something good, there's just a vibe about it. As the story grows you think it's going to be all about her wasting her life on her daughter and coming to an untimely end because of her.

But after some skilful twists and turns we realise it was never the film we thought it was going to be. Moore is fabulous as the mother, and Sweeney sure shows her acting chops as the wayward daughter. Domnhall Gleeson is at his menacing best in this taut, surprising thriller.

I very much enjoyed it and give it a solid 7.