Echo Valley (2025) Movie Review: An Intriguing Ethical Thriller Undone by Implausibility

“Echo Valley” (2025) is a competently shot, well-acted thriller that presents an intriguing ethical conundrum, but stumbles in its attempt to address it. At its core, the film presents a simple question about the lengths that parents would go for their children, and whether unfettered affection is always the best course of action. Despite some handsome visuals and a sincere attempt to examine issues like domestic violence and addiction, “Echo Valley” isn’t quite twisty enough to be an edgy mystery, and not focused enough to be a legitimate drama.

“Echo Valley” follows the horse trainer Kate Garrett (Julianne Moore), who has remained relatively secluded in the wake of a personal tragedy. Kate has struggled to pay the bills required to maintain her land, and while she seeks assistance from her wealthy ex-husband (Kyle MacLachlan), it’s made clear to her that no one is willing to invest in her future. Kate’s misery turns into a nightmare when she receives a panicked visit from her daughter, Claire (Sydney Sweeney), late at night. Claire has been in the midst of a breakup with her boyfriend, Ryan (Edmund Donovan), who himself is caught in a sticky situation with the drug dealer Jackie (Domhnall Gleeson).

It’s often that “Echo Valley” feels like a pastiche of various loglines, each of which would have made for a compelling story in its own right. Moore is an actress so inherently expressive that she’s capable of hinting at the feelings of depression, humiliation, and heartbreak that come with being separated from her loved ones.

After the death of her female partner, Kate’s relationship with her husband broke down, and Claire’s addiction issues prevented her from seeking anyone’s guidance. Unfortunately, “Echo Valley” so quickly turns into a genre thriller that these more subdued emotions are undercut. What could have been a clever lens in which to tell the story feels like a standard setup used as an inciting incident.

Echo Valley (2025) — A still from “Echo Valley” (2025)

Screenwriter Brad Ingelsby has a talent for examining the bleak, isolated frustration felt by America’s working class, particularly in small communities that have closed themselves to outsiders. Although “Out of the Furnace” and “Run All Night” were both relatively entertaining genre thrillers with just enough familial drama to become elevated, Ingelsby’s masterpiece has been the HBO miniseries “Mare of Easttown,” which proved to be the rare murder mystery show that examined collective grief.

Comparatively, “Echo Valley” is rather muted in tone, and never gives the same level of detail in exploring Kate’s community. Even if the intention was to explore the consequences of her self-imposed removal from social situations, the relentless bleakness doesn’t allow for variations in her emotions.

It doesn’t help that the lengths that “Echo Valley” goes to intertwine Kate into her daughter’s situation are borderline ludicrous. Despite the intriguing moral debates that they raise, it’s hard to accept the film’s morose beginning with the slapdash scheming that occupies its central narrative. Although it may be easy to poke holes in the logic of the situation, the biggest issue that “Echo Valley” faces is how its most intriguing relationship falls into the background. Sweeney impressively showcases the spectrum of emotions that Claire experiences during the most traumatizing hours of her life, but her presence becomes rather muted once Kate is placed in the protagonist’s chair.

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Despite a few intriguing set pieces, including a notable moment involving the burning of evidence, “Echo Valley” is largely focused on conversations. While none of the dialogue is bad, information is repeated quite frequently, leaving no opportunity for the film to withhold its reveals. It becomes immediately clear what Kate will need to do in order to protect her daughter’s future, which makes the carrying out of her plan less exciting. The use of flashbacks is also quite uneven, as the film never finds itself in a rhythmic place where it can easily switch between the two timelines.

Despite its tonal fluctuations, “Echo Valley” gets rather fun when it allows its stars to add dimensions to their characters, even if the details are in the performances, and not the screenplay. Sweeney is given an impossible task at playing a familial “screw up” who has made her fair share of bad decisions, but she is surprisingly able to evoke empathy for Claire. It’s a cruel irony that her life took such a dangerous turn at the moment she could have gone clean.

While Donovan serves his purpose as a scummy, pathetic abuser dependent on his girlfriend’s forgiveness, it’s Gleeson who ends up being the film’s scene-stealer. Jackie is a character whose complete lack of empathy makes him terrifying, even if he lacks the intelligence needed to back up his threats.

There’s not quite enough time for “Echo Valley” to establish an obsessive feud between Jackie and Kate, but the instances in which Moore and Gleeson are allowed to share the screen together are nonetheless intriguing. Although Gleeson may have once been floated as a potential leading man, his work in “Brooklyn,” “American Made,” “The Revenant,” and “Ex Machina,” among others, has indicated he’s much better fulfilling his father’s legacy by being a great character actor.

While Fiona Shaw’s appearance as Kate’s friend, Jessie, comes a tad too late in the story to add any further dimensions, the presence of such an accomplished performer (and one who can deliver stirring, albeit ridiculous monologues with a straight face) is certainly not a hindrance.

It’s hard to get frustrated with a film with as modest intentions as “Echo Valley,” but it is disappointing to see how infrequently the film challenges its own premise. Does Kate’s willingness to protect her daughter preclude Claire from learning the right lessons, and has she used her child’s suffering to avoid coping with her own issues? Performances from Shaw, MacLachlan, and Gleeson, which may have been given more depth and pathos over the course of a television season, are condensed to their most archetypal roles. Nonetheless, “Echo Valley” is a mostly engaging thriller that serves as a rare original, low-concept thriller. Perhaps, the legacy of “Echo Valley” would be if it inspired more films like it that were a little bit better.