Review: Julianne Moore can’t save « Echo Valley ».
It’s only been a week since I reviewed the TV series « Sirens » With Julianne Moore. Then I marveled at how this magnificent actor could embark on something so mediocre.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t get much better this week when she plays the lead role in « Echo Valley ». On the paper, this charged mom-daughter-daughter felt promising. A few years ago, British director Michael Pearce made a strong impression with his suggestive feature film debut « Beast ».
The films also have Many similarities. Both are psychological thriller dramas about spicy relationships between parents and children who take place in isolated places (the time the windblown island of Jersey, this time a distant horse farm in Pennsylvania) and has a frightening turn. Julianne Moore plays Kate, a woman in grief who lives alone with her horses since losing her partner.
Every now and then, her daughter Claire shows up (Sydney Sweeney from the TV series « Euphoria », « The White Lotus »). The daughter has long struggled with abuse, which has led to several teasing confrontations. This time she shows up with a pretty extreme request to her mother. The question is just how far Kate’s love for her daughter extends and if she is prepared to go over the corpse to help her?
It’s really Nothing wrong with the arrangement. Brad Ingelsby’s (« Mare of Easttown ») script contains strangers with dark motifs that suddenly appear in the home, extortion and evil death. And so in the midst of all this, a heartbreaking story about what it is like to be a parent of a child with difficult abuse.
As you hear, there are many different pieces that will be combined in one and the same movie. But there is no doubt that Julianne Moore can navigate between all these moods and genres. Sydney Sweeney also does what she can to breathe life into the monotonous role she was assigned as the constantly upset daughter.
But the way Kate’s two life trauma is used (after all, she became just a widow) mostly only appears as a power search which eventually causes the film to lose balance. While the first hour structure is a bit boring, the last forty minutes are so full of unlikely events stacked on each other that it feels forced. They are not in themselves sufficiently screwed or brilliant to surprise.
The result is only That the nightmare -like intrigue feels constructed. What remains are the supporting roles. Pearce has at least had the good taste of letting Kyle Maclachlan show up in a scene like Kate’s ex-man, Domhnall Gleeson wearing the role of sturdy drug dealer and wonderful Fiona Shaw (from the TV series « Killing Eve ») playing one of Kate’s best friends. In one scene, the girlfriends dance to Robyn’s « Dancing on my own ». That it is one of the highlights of the film probably says everything.
See more. Three worthwhile films with Julianne Moore: « Still Alice », « The Glorias » (2020), « The Room Next Door » (2024).
Kate Winslet shines like the sad wearing wolf Brad Inglesby’s strong series « Mare of Easttown »:
