'Echo Valley' Review - A Smart And Gripping Thriller From Apple TV+
Apple TV+'s Echo Valley doesn't bring anything particularly new to the thriller genre table. A woman with a troubled, drug-addicted daughter? Check. A child stuck in perpetual arrested development who needs help? Double check. A mother who proves the depth of her love by doing the unthinkable to protect her child? Triple check. However, the film is so well-crafted and tightly wound that you begin to forgive the clichés, thanks to the armrest-grabbing moments that linger throughout.
Echo Valley is a refreshing take on the genre. The well-made, thoughtful thriller finally gets the niche streaming platform a movie win, after misfires like Fountain of Youth, The Gorge, Wolfs, and The Instigators of late. Finally, Apple TV+ finds itself focusing on story, character development, and plot points instead of past their prime star-driven vehicles saturated with special effects.
The story follows Kate (Julianne Moore), who runs a horse-training farm deep in Echo Valley—a picturesque but isolating landscape where she lives a quiet, simple life. Unfortunately, money is tight. As a divorced mother, she has spent most of her savings on her daughter Claire's (Sydney Sweeney) drug rehabilitation. The barn roof that houses her prized horses is on the verge of collapse. Its beams are rotting from within. Desperate, Kate turns to her ex-husband (Kyle MacLachlan) for help. He only berates her and blames her financial troubles on her own choices.
How? Well, for one, he argues that Kate has been too easy on their daughter, Claire, causing Kate to skip giving horse riding lessons to make the extra cash to take care of her own business. That night, Claire shows up, in trouble with a local drug dealer (Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker's Domhnall Gleeson, excellent here), following her as she accidentally threw out his stash. After demanding some help, she physically assaults Kate, leaves, and does not come back for months. When she does, Kate has blood all over her clothes and is clearly in distress. Claire breaks down and tells Kate a story of a violent altercation that she walked away from. Kate now must do the unthinkable to save her daughter from herself.
Echo Valley was written by one of Hollywood's best screenwriters, Brad Ingelsby, whose credits include Out of the Furnace, American Woman, The Way Back, Mare of Easttown, and the upcoming Matthew McConaughey film The Lost Bus. Ingelsby excels at crafting genre films with depth. He particularly shines when exploring strong female characters and the dark side of the male ego. Here, the script focuses on seclusion, compounding the problems the characters face, ratcheting up tension and suspense amongst beautiful isolation.
The story can feel emotionally indulgent and somewhat repetitive under Michael Pearce's (Encounter) direction. However, it ultimately benefits from Ingelsby's exceptional storytelling techniques. The movie is smart, rarely taking a misstep, with Ingelsby slowly pulling back small and subtle revelations that keep the viewer engaged, without causing automatic and uncontrollable eye-rolling, which is usually a staple of the genre with films like these. That takes an incredible amount of patience and skill, where Ingelsby excels.
Echo Valley is worth watching precisely because it takes familiar tropes and subtly flips the script. Even minor deviations make a tremendous impact. Julianne Moore brings gravitas to what could have been a one-note role. Domhnall Gleeson downplays his seething villainy with pitch-perfect restraint. (That said, Sydney Sweeney does the bare minimum in a thankless, cookie-cutter role.) Ultimately, the thriller outperforms expectations to a degree, with a satisfying—if somewhat expected—conclusion.
Yes, this Apple TV+ streamer is something we've seen before, but it's executed with such precision that it becomes gripping nonetheless.
You can stream Echo Valley exclusively on Apple TV+ on June 13th!
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