‘Echo Valley’ Movie Review: Moore And Sweeney Make Drama-Turned-Thriller Very Watchable
Photo from Apple TV+
From Jeremy Kibler
Echo Valley is a few different movies that we’ve seen before. It’s a mother-daughter drama, specifically one about a mother with an addict daughter, and that’s when it’s at its strongest. Director Michael Pearce (Encounter) and writer Brad Ingelsby (Mare of Easttown) clearly trust the inherent drama in the core relationship, exceptionally well-acted by Julianne Moore and Sydney Sweeney. When this grounded, compelling drama turns into a melodramatic crime-thriller with blackmail, it loses its way a bit. Just because Echo Valley becomes preposterous does not mean it loses its watchability, but these actors didn’t really need such strained plot machinations.
Kate Garretson (Moore) needs a reason to get out of bed each morning after the death of her wife. One reason is keeping up with her Pennsylvania farm and the equestrian lessons she teaches. She can’t afford renovations on her house, but her civil ex-husband, Richard (Kyle MacLachlan in one scene), will write a check, even if he disagrees with Kate always coddling and enabling their addict daughter, Claire (Sweeney). Sure enough, Claire comes back into Kate’s life, asking for a new phone, and the cycle continues. She insists that she’s clean, but Kate keeps her guard up. Claire is on-again and off-again with her addict boyfriend, Ryan (Edmund Donovan), and after a prank that gets her in trouble with Ryan’s dealer brother Jackie (Domhnall Gleeson), things really escalate. One stormy night when Claire comes home with somebody else’s blood on her clothes and a dead body in her backseat, Kate finds it in herself to take care of the problem and make it all go away in a lake.
Julianne Moore is as captivating as Julianne Moore can be, making Kate’s raw grief painfully palpable and her rash decision more understandable than it should be. We root for Kate to get away with it. Sydney Sweeney is no slouch, either, and while she disappears for the film’s last half, she makes a mark with a few electric, vulnerable moments as Claire. A confrontational scene where the manipulative Claire demands money from Kate, who has locked herself in her bedroom, is quite harrowing; Claire goes feral, biting her mother’s hand and pulling her hair, and threatens to take the dog. It’s an intense, volatile moment that could have easily just lost all control by the actress but feels all too real.
When Echo Valley changes direction and makes a grand reveal, one wishes the entire film had just centered on Kate’s main conflict, doing what she feels she needs to do for Claire. It’s gripping-enough material, with a little reprieve from more-than-welcome scenes involving Kate and close friend Leslie (dynamically played by the fantastic Fiona Shaw). When Leslie comes over to comfort and commiserate with Kate, both women get drunk and dance together to Robyn. There’s no actual will-they-or-won’t-they sexual tension, but Leslie fondly watches Kate dancing freely, and it’s a nice, joyous moment in what is otherwise a bleak film. At the same time, we wouldn’t get a greasy, stringy-haired Domhnall Gleeson, who chillingly serves his part as the menacing and charismatic but not-as-smart-as-he-thinks-he-is Jackie who demands $10,000 from Claire.
Somber and moodily photographed in New Jersey (believably subbing for southeastern Pennsylvania), Echo Valley is always on the precipice of being more slippery and morally provocative, like 2001’s The Deep End with Tilda Swinton. It’s all about the cycles parents with addict children experience. In a story like this, there is no easy resolution, and how the filmmakers conclude it with their final shot is ambiguous and honest. It’s too bad about the excessive plotting.
Rating: 3/5
Echo Valley is currently in select theaters and on Apple TV+.
