Echo Valley Review
Director: Michael Pearce
Date Created: 2025-06-13 22:42
3.5
Echo Valley Review: Director Michael Pearce and written by Brad Ingelsby, the film has Julianne Moore as Kate Garretson and Sydney Sweeney as Claire Garretson, along with Domhnall Gleeson as Jackie Lawson. Fiona Shaw, Edmund Donovan, and Albert Jones also appear in the film, playing their roles to their best abilities to ensure the dark and suspenseful tone of the film. The film is 1 hour and 44 minutes long.
Apple TV+’s Echo Valley is a story about a woman who just wants to be content in her own universe on her peaceful farm—until the evening that her daughter stumbles in, shaken and blood-stained. It’s a gripping story of trust, fear, and what a mom will do to ensure her child is safe.
Echo Valley Review
I was expecting a slow-moving drama when I initially started watching Echo Valley on Apple TV+. But I was completely off the mark. The movie starts slowly, nearly as if in meditation on loss, before suddenly shooting into drama and entering something terribly dark and intense.
What actually attracted me, however, was that the movie is so perfectly poised between peril and emotion. Kate is not your typical mother. She’s a woman who’s already been through so much, who’s working to create a new life on horse farms in the bucolic countryside. And Claire comes raging in with white-hot passion, and it raises the stakes. It’s no longer about being a mother. It’s about living—and keeping secrets.
One of the greatest aspects of this movie Echo Valley, is the relationship between Kate and Claire. I experienced so many feelings at the same time—sadness, anger, hopefulness. As an emotional person who likes heartfelt storytelling, this aspect of the film touched me.
Julianne Moore and Sydney Sweeney are excellent on screen. Their arguments feel real and believable. Their cold shoulders are deafening. You could feel the pain that they’ve endured over the years. Even when I didn’t agree with what their characters were doing, I could feel why they were doing it. Good writing and fine acting.
Now let me be realistic—Echo Valley is not an ideal movie. There were moments when I felt that it was too slow, particularly in the second half. It was attempting to be such a high-octane emotional drama and crime thriller simultaneously, and that did not really work sometimes. For instance, once the tension at home had been established, the movie kinda set the mother-daughter relationship aside for some time.
But even so, I was completely hooked. I couldn’t look away because I needed to know how it turned out. Would Kate save her daughter? Would Claire have her revenge? The movie kept me on the edge of my seat all the way to the very last shot—and that is a hard thing for movies to do these days.
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One thing nobody can contest is the raw power of the performances. Julianne Moore is phenomenal. She brings Kate to life—like someone we may meet in life. She’s reserved, but she’s tough. She’s fearful, yet she’s courageous. It was like watching a person hold their breath for an hour and exhale the last second.
Sydney Sweeney surprised me as well. I’d only ever seen her act in lighter roles until now, but here she demonstrates that she can do so much more. Her breakdowns are simply so sad and so raw. And Domhnall Gleeson? Creepy and cold and unsettling as Jackie. He doesn’t even have to open his mouth, and you can feel your skin crawl.
The wintry setting of Echo Valley is just as good. The derelict farm, the spooky woods, the silent horses—all so winterly and desolate. Sometimes the crushing silence made me nervous. The muted colour scheme and illumination result in an ambience of gloom and intrigue. But yes, I also felt that the tempo was sluggish sometimes, and it might not be for everyone, particularly if you’re accustomed to fast-paced thrillers.
But it’s worth it, I think. The movie slowly develops the suspense, and once it gets to the ending, it is not disappointing. I am not going to tell you what the ending is, but let’s just say—it’s genius and so worth it.
Apple TV+ Echo Valley Review: Summing Up
Overall, I’d say the film is worth seeing. The pacing was too slow. Some of the plot was sort of left hanging. But with such magnificent acting and a not-gonna-be-forgotten conclusion, I’m happy that I did manage to catch it. Echo Valley had me thinking about the things we do for the people we love—and the ways in which sometimes those things will cost us dearly. It’s not a film based on jump thrills or adrenaline rushes. Rather, it’s a stripped-down but forceful tale of family, guilt, and how love can save us and kill us.
Echo Valley 2025 is now streaming on Apple TV+.
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