Thrillers are often hard to handle, whether they are too contrived to be believable or too ridiculous to be plausible. Echo Valley, from the writer of the Kate Winslet drama Mare of Easttown and the director of Beast, starts off way too contrived, but thanks to a strong script, direction and a brilliant lead performance, this turns out to be a gripping, twisty, turny movie.

Kate is a woman dealing with the tragic loss of her wife and coping with the financial difficulties of running a farm with horses. She also has a daughter, Claire, who is constantly asking for help with her drug addiction. Then one night, she turns up on Kate’s doorstep, terrified, dishevelled and covered in someone else’s blood.

Director Michael Pearce has made dealing with complex family issues part of his CV. With his brilliant 2017 Beast and the 2021 Encounters, both of which focus on family members dealing with difficult situations. Here we have a woman, trying her hardest to make ends meet and keep the farm she has built with her now departed partner, who finds her life turned upside down by a deadly decision from her troubled daughter.

The film is one of two halves, It takes it’s time to introduce the characters, mainly Kate, who seems far too fragile and easily manipulated by her wayward daughter, who comes across as a girl constantly needing the support of her mother, even though her father knows that all she is after is money. When Claire arrives at the house with a body in the back of the car, you immediately get the feeling that something isn’t quite right.

It’s from this point on that the film kicks into gear, as drug dealer Jackie arrives and uses information about Kate to blackmail her. With a vice-like grip, Pearce turns up the tension and suspense, and what we get is a film that gets better the longer it runs. What makes this really work is that we feel for Kate and her plight. She wants to do the best for her daughter, but has put her into an impossible position. By the finale, in which we are shown the events that lead to the denouement, we are delighted, even if it occasionally slips into contrivances.

It’s thanks to Julianne Moore’s completely believable performance as Kate that this film really works. She is vulnerable, sometimes naive, and riddled with grief, yet underneath that shaken exterior beats the heart of a lion and the mind of a genius. You are taken on this journey by this woman, and if you didn’t emote with her, this wouldn’t work. As Claire, Sydney Sweeney delivers another terrific performance that showcases why she is an actress poised to go on to even greater things. She manages to tear our feelings about her with great ease. Domhnall Gleeson as Jackie is a complete slimeball, with greasy long hair and a darkness that we rarely see from the actor. It’s another excellent performance from the actor.

Echo Valley is a thriller that may split the viewer, but once you get to the heart of the matter, you have to ask yourself a question: how far would you go for your child? Even though this has a simultaneous streaming and cinema release, it works best on the big screen.

4 out of 5

Director: Michael Pearce

Starring: Julianne Moore, Sydney Sweeney, Domhnall Gleeson, Fiona Shaw, Edmund Donovan, Albert Jones, Kyle MacLachlan, Katya Campbell, Melanie Nicholls-King

Written by: Brad Ingelsby

Running Time: 104 mins

Cert: 15

Release date: 13th June 2025 (also on Apple TV+)