Plot: Kate is a mother struggling to make peace with her troubled daughter Claire — a situation that becomes even more perilous when Claire shows up on Kate’s doorstep, hysterical and covered in someone else’s blood. As Kate pieces together the shocking truth of what happened, she learns just how far a mother will go to try to save her child in this gripping tale of love, sacrifice, and survival.
Review: Between the two of them, Julianne Moore and Sydney Sweeney have starred in twelve films since 2023. While Moore has garnered Oscars and Emmys through her acclaimed career, Sweeney is at the start of hers. The two actors bring a lot to Echo Valley, an intense thriller from writer Brad Inglesby and producer Ridley Scott. With Sweeney riding high on the success of Immaculate and Moore on the buzzworthy Netflix series Sirens, both deliver some of their best recent work in this film. Featuring excellent supporting turns from Fiona Shaw and Domhnall Gleeson, Echo Valley is not the film I was expecting it to be. With some twists and turns and a surprising final act, Echo Valley combines heavy performances from Sweeney and Moore into a thriller with some emotional heft. I thought I knew exactly where this film was headed, but Inglesby and director Michael Pearce kept the creativity flowing to the very end.
Echo Valley opens with Kate Garretson (Julianne Moore) running her horse farm after the loss of her wife in an accident. Grief-stricken, Kate relies on financial help from her ex-husband Richard (Kyle MacLachlan), who refuses to help their estranged daughter, Claire (Sydney Sweeney), a drug addict who has relapsed countless times. Claire shows up at Echo Valley to get money from her mother after a fight with her boyfriend, Ryan (Edmund Donovan). Circumstances pull Claire and Richard’s dealer, Jackie Lawson (Domhnall Gleeson), into the mix. Jackie demands payment for his missing drugs, which he claims Claire and Richard are responsible for. Kate steps in to help however she can, and the demands from her daughter mount and become increasingly complex and risky. Dutifully, Kate does what she can, but eventually, there is no turning back.
For the first half-hour of Echo Valley, I felt confident I knew where the story was headed. Sure enough, some of the beats I predicted landed exactly where I thought they would. Despite some of the formulaic early going, I was impressed by both Julianne Moore and Sydney Sweeney. Moore has turned in very different roles in Almodovar’s The Room Next Door and Netflix’s Sirens, giving her very distinct characters. Here, Moore plays a woman mourning the loss of her wife as well as a mother tormented by an inability to save her daughter from herself. Moore is excellent at digging into the emotion of her characters, and seeing her play Kate as simultaneously strong and helpless is a testament to her abilities as an actor. Equally, Sydney Sweeney keeps impressing me by refusing to flaunt her physicality purely for sexual attraction. Claire is the most unattractive character that Sweeney has played to date, and reminded me at times of Timothee Chalamet’s turn in Beautiful Boy. Sweeney’s role is smaller than I anticipated, but she has some haunting moments that will stir any viewer who has had a loved one with addiction issues.
The other impressive turn in Echo Valley comes from Domhnall Gleeson. Most recently seen in Guy Ritchie’s Fountain of Youth, Gleeson remains one of the best actors working today. Gleeson portrays Jackie as a greedy antagonist who wants without regard for the cost. There are several moments where I wanted to lash out at him through the screen, a tell-tale sign of a fantastic villain performance. Gleeson and Moore share multiple scenes that rank as some of the year’s best acting. Equally good is Fiona Shaw, who steals every project she appears in. The narrative thread involving Moore and Shaw’s characters and their friendship is vital to the film’s overarching story and one that strengthens the film’s final act. While Kyle MacLachlan’s role is relegated to a single scene, he is also quite good here, giving another angle to the history of Kate and Claire’s tumultuous relationship.
Director Michael Pearce (Beast, Encounter) frames Echo Valley with dark tones and a muted palette that pulls on the natural beauty of the horse farm and the surrounding areas while giving a bleaker look at the impact of Claire’s addiction. Sydney Sweeney and Julianne Moore were filmed in natural light, which shows every trauma their characters have faced, giving the film a very realistic look. Writer Brad Ingelsby continues his great work with HBO’s Mare of Easttown, The Way Back, and Our Friend in crafting a story full of real and broken characters. This story does not feel like an ornate cinematic project but rather a gritty and blunt glimpse into these characters. As a drama, this story has an emotional weight that magnifies the thriller elements, turning this into an intense and intricate mystery. Everything clicks from Jed Kurzel’s subtle score to the cinematography of Benjamin Kracun. Producer Ridley Scott picked a fantastic project to finance, giving this crew and cast a chance to tell a story worth experiencing.
Echo Valley is a prime example of a story that grabs you when you least expect it. I was confident I had the story figured out, and Brad Ingelsby managed to upend my expectations by taking it in a different direction. Julianne Moore is as good as she has ever been as she anchors this affecting story of grief for those who have passed and those we cannot help. Sydney Sweeney continues to impress as she takes challenging roles, while Domhnall Gleeson and Fiona Shaw are the underrated anchors. Echo Valley is chilling as an emotional drama and thrilling as a mystery to be solved. By working on multiple levels at once, Echo Valley is definitely worth checking out.
Echo Valley opens in theaters on June 6 and on Apple TV+ on June 13.
Source:
JoBlo.com
