Holding On, Letting Go, Losing Control

Read Time:4 Minute, 37 Second

MOVIE REVIEW
Echo Valley
–

Genre: Drama, Thriller
Year Released: 2025
Runtime: 1h 44m
Director(s): Michael Pearce
Writer(s): Brad Ingelsby
Cast: Julianne Moore, Sydney Sweeney, Domhnall Gleeson, Fiona Shaw, Edmund Donovan, Albert Jones, Kyle MacLachlan
Where to Watch: available June 13, 2025, on Apple TV+

RAVING REVIEW: This one starts slowly but flies by once it gets going. Built around a fractured relationship between a grieving mother and her self-destructive daughter, the story hooks you with a deeply emotional premise before pivoting into something more dangerous. While that shift is compelling, it leaves you wanting more, and not always in the best way.

Julianne Moore plays Kate with quiet exhaustion, like someone preparing for the next crisis since the last one ended. The farm she runs is barely holding together, mirroring her mental and emotional state. Her daughter, Claire—played by Sydney Sweeney—returns home in complete chaos, and things don’t take long to start to spiral. From there, the tension grows, but the performances hold this together. Moore and Sweeney have a believable tension that carries much of the weight.

Sweeney, in particular, leans into Claire's reckless volatility with a sense of purpose. There’s no subtlety in how the character is written, but Sweeney finds moments of rawness that cut through the script’s more on-the-nose choices. She’s a mess, and the film doesn’t try to sanitize that, but it also doesn’t dig deep enough into her addiction or trauma, which feels like a missed opportunity.

Once the thriller aspect takes over, the tone shifts hard. That pivot mostly works because it brings a revived energy to the story, but shortchanges the emotional groundwork laid early on. The themes of grief, regret, and boundaries fade as the plot kicks into gear. It’s not that the second half doesn’t work—it’s tense, and even exciting—but it feels like we switched movies halfway through. By the time the film hits its final act, there’s a lot to enjoy in how it all plays out, especially thanks to a last-minute jolt of momentum that’s satisfying (although slightly predictable) in the moment.

Domhnall Gleeson enters the picture as a menacing third-party presence in the first half, and his role is small but effective as it grows throughout the second. He brings enough threat to shake things up just as they start to feel predictable. That said, the ending feels abrupt. You can see where the momentum was building, and then it just stops. That’s where the biggest issue lies: this felt like the first three episodes of a good limited series. The characters have a history that’s only hinted at. There are ideas introduced but barely explored. It’s easy to imagine a longer format where we see Claire’s earlier life, how Kate lost her grip, and what is at stake beyond this chaotic incident. Instead, we get a rushed conclusion and no real sense of closure.

As a film, it’s functional. It works. But it doesn’t fully satisfy what you’re hoping for. You can tell the writers had more they wanted to unpack, or at least it feels like they did. The core ideas—loyalty, grief-fueled compromise, the gray space between love and survival—are strong enough to support more time. The movie just doesn’t give them room to breathe.

That said, the stakes are real. Watching Kate struggle to hold onto a version of Claire she no longer sees is compelling, especially in the quiet moments. There’s a particularly memorable scene where she lets herself feel joy for just a second—a brief release from everything weighing her down—and those moments stick.

Despite its uneven structure and frustrating aspects, there's still a lot to like. The acting alone makes it worth watching, and the dramatic tension holds up even when the storytelling feels rushed. You might not walk away from it feeling blown away, but you’ll be thinking about these characters' final decisions and their willingness to do for one another.

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