Blah crime thriller ‘Echo Valley’ is short of arresting
True to its title, “Echo Valley” reverberates ideas and plot points from better movies while sinking deeper into a recess of mediocrity. It stars a game, ready for action Julianne Moore as a fierce mama bear willing to do anything to protect her wayward cub, including aiding and abetting an alleged murder.
Written by “Mare of Easttown” scribe Brad Ingelsby, “Echo Valley” is a similar tale of female woe set on the outskirts of Philadelphia, where Moore’s recently widowed Kate Garretson operates a languishing equestrian center. Saddled with grief, debt and a callous ex-husband (a wasted Kyle MacLachlan) – before whom she is forced to grovel for money to keep her farm running – Kate can’t seem to catch a break.
It only gets worse after her prodigal, drug-addicted daughter, Claire (a glammed-down Sydney Sweeney), makes one of her periodic returns seeking cash to feed a nasty heroin addiction. But wait, Ingelsby isn’t done piling on, tossing in a hermetically sealed corpse, $10,000 in missing dope and a blackmailing smack dealer in Domhnall Gleason’s Jackie Lawson for Kate to contend with. It makes the burdens Kate Winslet faced in “Easttown” seem like minor inconveniences.
Is it just me, or is Ingelsby a bit myopic in writing about women dealing with multiple shitstorms while also involved in a homicide in the Philly suburbs? Is he a one-trick pony? Echo, indeed. But he doesn’t just repeat himself; he also pilfers from others, most obviously Scott McGehee and David Siegel, whose 2001 offering, “The Deep End,” is evoked frequently, including its distinct LGBTQ subtext. Only this time it’s the mom and not the child who is into same-sex partners.
But neither Ingelsby nor director Michael Pearce (“Beast”) seems all that interested in exploring when, where and why Kate decided to switch teams, but our brief introduction to her ex, Richard (MacLachlan), presents a persuasive case for swearing off men. Heck, except for a flashback or two, we’re also unenlightened as to the particulars of Kate’s enduring devotion to her one great love, Patty (Kristina Valada-Viars), who recently perished in a freak accident.
Come to think of it, we’re also denied background information on Kate’s passive-aggressive relationship with Claire, and how it soured to the point Claire felt impelled to anesthetize her pain with narcotics. It’s a glaring lack of depth that prevents us from connecting with characters who aren’t all that interesting to begin with.
This is particularly problematic when it comes to Kate’s willingness to sacrifice everything to secure her daughter’s love. Why? What is it that drives her, without hesitation, to risk her freedom the night a hysterical Claire comes pounding on her door, claiming that she’s accidentally dealt a fatal blow to her sleazy boyfriend, Ryan (Edmund Donovan). Instead of notifying the police, Kate opts to dispose of the body at the bottom of a lake.
This entire sequence is meant to be gripping, but you’re more inclined to laugh at the preposterous manner in which it plays out. Why, for example, would Claire go to the trouble of wrapping the remains like a mummy? And why not ditch the dead dude at the scene of the crime? Why load him in the back seat of her car and drive to Mom’s house at the risk of getting pulled over by the cops? And how in the world did Moore’s petite Kate summon the strength to single-handedly lug the much larger Ryan from her daughter’s car into a row boat she then lifts into a horse trailer before towing its contents to the lake? Again, at the risk of being stopped by police. It’s simply ludicrous.
More so when Gleeson’s Jackie emerges in a contrived third act in which Inglesby introduces an extortion scheme that is built more on Kate’s cunning than any sort of intrigue. It leads to a mildly surprising ending that hurriedly attempts to tie all the various story strands together.
It’s perplexing why Ingelsby felt the need to make his screenplay this convoluted. All it results in is confusion as to the movie’s aim. Is it a tale of the helplessness and anguish felt by the parent of a drug-addicted child? Kate’s catharsis, i.e., channeling her grief into protecting her daughter? How about how far dear friends, like Fiona Shaw’s Leslie, will extend themselves to help a pal? Or, is it just a straight-up thriller featuring a mustache-twirling villain in Gleason’s Jackie inflicting unimaginable menace?
Whatever the objective, the result is a mess that wastes another fine performance by Moore, who repeatedly manages to maneuver through a discombobulated script to keep you engaged, even as the plot grows increasingly ridiculous. She makes this Apple TV+ offering watchable, but there’s not a lot she can do to counteract an enterprise so woefully short on ideas and intent. Unlike Claire, be smart and leave this stiff where it lies.
Movie review
Echo Valley
Rated: R for language, drug references, violence
Cast: Julianne Moore, Sydney Sweeney, Domhnall Gleeson, Fiona Shaw and Kyle MacLachlan
Director: Michael Pearce
Writer: Brad Ingelsby
Runtime: 103 minutes
Where: Currently in theaters (limited) before expanding and debuting on Apple TV+ on June 13
Grade: C
