Drop

Grade: B

Drop is the second movie within two months to feature Meghann Fahy as the mother of a precocious, wise-beyond-his-years son. In February, her onscreen child was the title character in The Unbreakable Boy. I wasn’t a fan of the film, but really liked her. She’s equally effective and memorable in Drop, as Violet, a single mother – a widow, actually. Don’t trust the first few flashbacks you see that show the abusive husband’s last scene; they don’t tell the whole story.

She is getting back into the dating game for the first time since her son’s father’s traumatizing death, by meeting up with Henry, a professional photographer she has been chatting with on a dating app. Violet’s sister arrives to babysit the boy, and off she goes to see Henry, at a fine dining restaurant on a high floor of a skyscraper downtown.

While at dinner, Violet begins receiving anonymous drops on her phone, from the same username. He or she tells Violet things like “I can see everything.” “I want you to take your date’s SD card out of his camera and smash it.” “I want you to kill your date.” “Don’t call for help. Don’t tell anybody. If I see you breaking any of my rules, your sister and son will die.” I’m paraphrasing, but that is the gist. Real-time security camera footage at Violet’s house confirms that there is at least one masked man there – lurking, packing, and ready to pounce. This isn’t a bluff.

I often say that honesty in movies is productive and satisfying. In Drop, Violet can’t tell anyone the truth, and it’s one of the few times lying in movies – when the audience knows the real deal the whole time – didn’t frustrate me. The messenger is in the restaurant. She looks around. As just about everyone is buried in their phones, it doesn’t narrow it down. It’s a clever piece of social commentary, and ain’t it the truth? I am writing this on such a device right now, and you are probably reading it on one.

Brandon Sklenar (a third of the love triangle in last year’s It Ends With Us) plays Henry as, by all appearances, a consummate perfect gentleman – ever the good sport as Violet keeps checking her phone and acting weirder and weirder throughout the night. Jeffery Self is appropriately annoying, but a scene-stealer as their flamboyant waiter, who is in for the most memorable first shift of his life. Director Christopher Landon (the Happy Death Day series) finds uniquely fun ways to show us the messages Violet receives. Rather than cut to her phone screen, the text could show up in the air next to her face, or it could materialize on the walls/windows, and so on.

The journey is definitely more pleasing than the destination. Drop’s ending veers into ridiculousness. The meat and potatoes of the movie maintained entertaining, taut, Hitchcockian tension – only to devolve a bit when we are provided the explanation for everything. It’s arcane and convoluted, followed by some action where characters take a licking and keep on ticking, followed by them making “too soon” jokes about what they had just been through. But it’s not too much of a deterrent. The landing is questionable, but the flight was quite enjoyable. As a compelling spring popcorn thriller, Drop succeeds.

Grade: B