‘Echo Valley' Review: Julianne Moore And Sydney Sweeney Are Dynamite In Nail-Biting, Riveting Thriller
Pair stars like Julianne Moore and Sydney Sweeney, add BAFTA-winning director Michael Pearce and a top screenwriter of, among others, the Emmy-winning Mare of Easttown in Brad Ingelsby and major producers including Ridley Scott and it is not a surprise that they have collectively cooked up one barnburner of a thriller. And the 'barnburner' part you can take literally.
It is called Echo Valley and will begin streaming on Apple TV+ on June 13, but this could do well in theaters (it supposedly will play in a select few). Nevertheless, it is gripping stuff no matter how you find it.
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Moore, in fine form, plays Kate, divorced and now estranged from her ex-husband Richard (Kyle MacLachlan, in all too briefly) and grieving the loss of her wife, also has to deal with an on-and-off relationship with volatile daughter Claire (Sydney Sweeney), who is running with the wrong crowd and hopelessly addicted to drugs. Kate has been doing everything she can to help her and get her back on track. But she is broke thanks to Claire's travails, and even resorts to begging her ex for money to fix her Echo Valley Farm roof which is one storm away from caving in.
To make ends meet she boards horses and gives riding lessons, but it is not enough. Claire has a run-in when her bad-news boyfriend Ryan (Edmund Donovan) shows up with his petty criminal drug dealer Jackie Lyman (Domhnall Gleeson), the latter strong-arming her and demanding the return of a case with drugs that she unknowingly tossed over a bridge during a fight with Ryan. He demands $10,000 until Kate discovers the altercation and kicks him out. After hysterically trying to force money from her mother, Claire takes off. Things don't go well from there and when she finally returns, a mess with blood all over her, Kate asks what happened. Turns out another encounter with Ryan and Jackie ended violently and Kate confesses she accidentally killed Ryan. 'Did you go to the police?' her mother asks. 'No,' she replies.
At this moment what is a mother who has lost everything going to do with the daughter, no matter how difficult, who is all she has left? 'Where's the body?' Kate asks. From this point on hang on to your seat because you will be jumping out of it due to the myriad twists and turns this wild ride takes us on.
Ingelsby is an exceptional storyteller and has provided a real crackerjack of a thriller with this premise that also examines family dynamics and just how much is too much unconditional love of a mother for her child. For a while I was thinking this is all a great advertisement against ever having kids, and it is only because Moore is just so exceptional in this kind of harrowing situation that you believe she would go as far as she does indeed go for the sake of saving Claire from herself. Echo Valley is the perfect match for someone of Moore's prodigious talents, a role requiring physicality, strong emotions and belief this is a woman with more than one trick up her sleeve to survive and keep what is left of her family together. Sweeney goes for it too, a true powder keg going off at any moment, and she makes Claire into one humdinger of a problem. In Sweeney's hands you can see someone believably falling under the spell of such a dead-end lover, but you just want to lock her up and throw away the key. The dynamic, ever-changing and charged between the two, is palpable.
Into all this comes Jackie Lyman, and I had no idea it was Gleeson who totally transforms into this creepy little small-time monster who terrorizes Claire, and then most memorably Kate (there are shades of Max Cady from Cape Fear here). Gleeson delivers one of the more convincing bad dude turns in recent years, evil personified but a guy who thinks he is much smarter than he really is. You just hate Jackie, but Gleeson you cannot take you eyes off whenever he is on screen. Among the rest of the cast, Fiona Shaw is excellent as the grounding best friend who tries to calm an increasingly troubled Kate. There is also fine work from Albert Jones as a police detective and Donovan as the loser boyfriend.
Pearce's slick production is aided immeasurably by Benjamin Kracun's first-rate cinematography and the superb atmospheric production design from Keith P. Cunningham.
Producers are Ridley Scott, Michael Pruss, Kevin J. Walsh and Ingelsby.
Title: Echo ValleyDistributor: Apple Original FilmsRelease Date: June 13, 2025 (streaming on Apple TV+)Director: Michael PearceScreenwriter: Brad IngelsbyCast: Julianne Moore, Sydney Sweeney, Domhnall Gleeson, Fiona Shaw, Edmund Donovan, Albert Jones, Kyle MacLachlan, John Kenton KramerRating: RRunning time: 1 hr and 43 mins
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