Echo Valley

Grade: B

Echo Valley is like one of those pulp mystery novels you would get wrapped up in. You’d be disappointed to put it down, and you couldn’t wait to get a break from that pesky real life stuff, so you could return to it and continue the journey. In the end, you are left with a new room in your brain, full of questions and thoughts and aspects to unpack/discuss with friends who have seen it. 

It goes in so many directions (not all of them are necessary), before finally settling into a twisty murder mystery of sorts. Think Knives Out or Primal Fear. A few things we find out up front: Julianne Moore plays Kate. She’s once-divorced and once-widowed – living alone on a nice farm with a barn on the property. She gives horse riding lessons. One early scene shows some expository business with her ex-husband, played by Kyle MacLachlan. They argue about their ne’er-do-well, addict, rehab-regular daughter. “You need to be more firm with her, you enable her…” etc. This is MacLachlan’s only scene. His character has a daughter of his own, by his much younger new wife. Odd that a detail like that would be introduced once and never revisited, not to mention why a big actor like MacLachlan would be in the movie so little. It makes me wonder if there were further plans for this subplot, but most of it got cut.

The struggling junkie daughter is Claire, played by Sydney Sweeney. She shows up at Kate’s farm, and for a while, Echo Valley dips its toe in the Lifetime/after-school-special pool. Lots of yelling, screaming, and crying about drug addiction transpires between Moore and Sweeney. Thankfully, the movie has further plans. Something bad takes place. Somebody covers it up, and thinks they’ve made the problem go away. A character comes out of the woodwork, who knows about what really happened, and wants some perks in exchange for silence.

From there, the film takes off into fun explorations. For all its tonal whiplash, Moore capably carries the movie. Though Sweeney’s character can be a cliche, she proves that she is a fearless actress (we got a taste of that in Immaculate), and isn’t just someone who is known for being enjoyable to look at (we got a taste of that in Anyone But You). Fiona Shaw (recently in Hot Milk) is very effective as one of the most supportive friends I’ve ever seen in a movie. You’ll find out. I won’t begin to say how Domhnall Gleeson fits into everything, but he’s great. It takes a while for it to decide what it wants to be, but once it does, Echo Valley is an absorbing, involving, engaging ride.

Grade: B