Julianne Moore and Sydney Sweeney are the big selling points for those tuning in to watch Apple TV+’s new thriller, Echo Valley, but it’s clear that even the actors aren’t quite sure what story they’re telling. The actresses play Kate and Claire, a mother and daughter with a strained relationship marred by betrayal and lies. However, Echo Valley leans far further into dangerous and violent territory than its idyllic setting lets on. As the grass sways gently in the breeze on Kate’s horse farm, she gets pulled into a plot that will test the limits of her love for Claire.
Unfortunately, the test is not as shocking as one might hope based on how Echo Valley sets the stage for its story. Written by Brad Ingelsby, who created and wrote Mare of Easttown, a much more effective exploration of a mother struggling with grief, Echo Valley is an echo of the themes Ingelsby was channeling then. Though it’s set in the present, the film is somewhat removed from any time and place because it doesn’t feel real. A good thriller can take you to places you’ve never been, but I don’t think this is what Echo Valley intended to do.
Echo Valley Squanders Its Potential, Losing The Audience Before The Second Act Begins
The Uneven Pacing & Underdeveloped Characters Make It Hard To Care About Echo Valley
I expect a lot from a modern thriller, as the genre provides so many organic opportunities for stakes and tension, but it quickly became clear that Echo Valley was going to squander these. Almost immediately, we get direct lines of exposition explaining the nuances of each relationship and everything that’s happened up to this point. There’s a lot of back and forth. Kate has to leave the farm, and then is called back. She goes to the lake but has to make a pit stop at a house, and this continues until the film goes in circles.
All this movement feels like a stalling tactic to try and hide the fact that not much happens in the story. The pace is all over the place, which only compounds the fact that the characters are forgettable. Moore and Sweeney have one decently intense scene together during the setup, but this isn’t enough to carry the rest of the story. We rarely see more than two of the characters in the same room at the same time, making each scene feel like it exists in a vacuum, losing sight of the whole picture of what Echo Valley could be.
Like many contemporary films, Echo Valley uses grief as a crutch.
Moore takes on the brunt of the movie almost completely alone, with everyone from daughters to ruthless criminals popping in and out of her life and the film. Sweeney is barely in the movie. Unfortunately, when she does appear, she isn’t giving her all to the small role. Though she’s capable of serious dramatic work, her attempts at showcasing the depth of her character don’t come through. Domhnall Gleeson plays Jackie and is unsettling, but tonally, his characterization is all over the place. This is likely because we don’t get to know him, or anyone really, other than Kate.
It’s understandable that Echo Valley would want to center on Moore. She’s compelling and likable but underutilized in the film. If Echo Valley wanted to talk concretely about the unconditional love that parents give to their children and how this can be taken to extreme lengths, then we needed to see more interactions between Kate and Claire. Their dynamic had the opportunity to be worth investigating, but instead, we see Kate being constantly taken advantage of and doing nothing about it.
Like many contemporary films, Echo Valley uses grief as a crutch. Kate’s filled with sighs and longing and pangs of the past, but this isn’t a stand-in for personality and character development. Instead of making her a real character with desires and actions, Echo Valley makes her an empty vessel who can be moved in any direction to suit the script. In a movie that could have commented on the depth of mothers and the way their inner lives are often overlooked, it was disappointing to see Kate treated this way.
Kate's Big Twist & Echo Valley's Ending Are Unearned
I'm Not Sold On The Movie's Message
Echo Valley saves us from total boredom with the unearned third-act twist, but it’s unbelievable for the wrong reasons. There was enough foreshadowing and stolen glances that the narrative turn didn’t come out of nowhere, but I didn’t buy that Kate would have the wherewithal and confidence to pull it off. Her character is a pushover, and though she proves herself to have some ability to stand up for herself by the final moments of the story, Echo Valley doesn’t earn this grand finale, and it leaves each character exactly as we found them.
Kate didn’t grow or change at all throughout the film, and she wasn’t alone in that. Every character in Echo Valley is static. While the movie might be asking what it means to love someone after they’ve wronged us, the fact that we never get a cathartic moment between Kate and Claire means this message doesn’t come into focus. Watching Echo Valley isn’t long at a little over an hour and a half. However, even in that amount of time, I had hoped to witness more of the story and fewer hollow twists.
Pros & Cons
- Moore helps anchor the story with her performance.
- The discussions of parent-child relationships carry emotional weight.
- The uneven pacing cuts the tension of the story's big reveals.
- The characters remain static throughout the plot.
