Echo Valley (2025) isn’t a disaster—it’s handsomely shot, capably acted, and carries the skeleton of a compelling story. But the execution is underwhelming. With muddled direction, an emotional arc that doesn’t fully connect, and a central relationship between Julianne Moore and Sydney Sweeney’s characters that is more implied than developed, this Apple TV+ release lands closer to forgettable than impactful. It’s a film with some standout moments, but not nearly enough of them.
‘Echo Valley’ Movie Review
Echo Valley, directed by Michael Pearce and starring Julianne Moore and Sydney Sweeney, is a murky psychological drama that never quite figures out what story it wants to tell. Marketed as an intense mother-daughter thriller, the film instead spirals into a meandering character study that sidelines its most marketable star and struggles to land its emotional beats with any conviction. What starts as a potentially gripping premise—what would a mother do when her daughter shows up late at night covered in blood—quickly fizzles into a thematically scattered and often directionless narrative.
Julianne Moore (The Room Next Door) plays Kate, a grieving mother and horse trainer living on a failing ranch, still coping with the loss of her wife and the continuous emotional fallouts with her daughter Claire (Sydney Sweeney). Early on, the film seems like it’s setting up a tight domestic thriller: Claire arrives in a panic, blood on her clothes, claiming to have killed her abusive boyfriend Ryan (Edmund Donovan) in self-defense. It’s the kind of setup that should trigger a tense, spiraling drama full of hard choices and unraveling truths.
But instead of leaning into that premise, Echo Valley takes a hard turn. Claire and Ryan disappear from the story entirely after a fake-out involving a staged assault and another attempt to con money from Kate. Sweeney, despite being top-billed, vanishes from the movie about halfway through—making her performance almost feel more like a cameo than a central role. What follows is less about a mother protecting her daughter and more about Kate fending off a blackmail threat from Ryan’s volatile drug dealer Jackie (played with sneering menace by Domhnall Gleeson), whose arc eventually becomes as compelling as anyone else’s.
The tonal inconsistencies make the film feel uneven. At times, it reaches for prestige drama with heavy themes like grief, addiction, and betrayal. Other times, it tries to be a gritty thriller, yet never fully commits to either genre. The first hour lack cohesion, bouncing between character introspections and plot setups that rarely pay off. A third-act twist does deliver a brief jolt of energy, but by then it feels too little, too late.
Julianne Moore is the clear standout, carrying much of the film on her back with a grounded and emotionally layered performance. She’s given the space to show her range in a few extended scenes, and it’s in those volatile moments—especially when opposite Fiona Shaw as Kate’s longtime friend Jessie—that Echo Valley comes closest to finding its footing. Gleeson also improves as the film progresses, bringing a jittery anger and paranoia to an otherwise standard antagonist role.
But the film’s biggest issue is its lack of thematic clarity. The idea that this is a story about how far a mother would go for her daughter is mostly told, not shown, culminating in a rushed emotional montage in the final minutes that tries to retroactively inject depth into a relationship that was never convincingly explored. It leans heavily on nostalgia and memory to pull heartstrings, but it hasn’t earned that sentiment.
As for Sweeney, Echo Valley continues a string of roles that seem designed to reshape her public image, but end up highlighting her limitations. She’s better suited to projects that understand and embrace her charisma, like Euphoria, Anyone But You, or even The Voyeurs. When she’s asked to play grit and grounded realism, like she is here or in Reality, the performances feel more tentative and restrained and less authentic.
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Echo Valley isn’t a disaster—it’s handsomely shot, capably acted, and carries the skeleton of a compelling story. But the execution is underwhelming. With muddled direction, an emotional arc that doesn’t fully connect, and a central relationship that’s more implied than developed, this Apple TV+ release lands closer to forgettable than impactful. It’s a film with some standout moments, but not nearly enough of them.
Score: 4/10
Echo Valley (2025)
- Cast: Julianne Moore, Sydney Sweeney, Domhnall Gleeson, Kyle MacLachlan, Fiona Shaw, Edmund Donovan
- Director: Michael Pearce
- Genre: Drama, Thriller
- Runtime: 104 minutes
- Rated: R
- Release Date: June 12, 2025
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