Stay informed with free updates
Simply sign up to the Film myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.
What is Psycho if not the story of a devoted mom? You might be surprised to find yourself thinking of Alfred Hitchcock’s celebrated chiller while watching Echo Valley. At first glance, the movie looks like a slightly stodgy domestic drama, with Julianne Moore as a heartsick mother and Sydney Sweeney as her troubled daughter. Yet memories of the Bates Motel keep glinting. Incriminating evidence is physically submerged; a wink is given to the famous shower scene. And more Hitchcock still, the film delightedly pulls the rug from under you.
After all, to watch the first act of Psycho without knowing what comes next is to encounter a movie largely about book-keeping. Something similar happens with Echo Valley — a smart, compelling thriller that opens as a polite portrait of loss.
The title is shared with the riding school run by Moore’s character, Kate, in idyllic rural Pennsylvania. Again, appearances deceive. Emotionally, the roof is falling in. Kate’s wife died six months ago. The grief still scalds. But the roof is also literally collapsing. Cue another past partner: a wealthy ex-husband (Kyle MacLachlan), from whom Kate is obliged to seek help.
The film is good on the particular sting of asking family members for money. Soon, Kate’s adult daughter Claire (Sweeney) returns after unspecified time away. For now, she has only lost her phone, but that is enough to reveal the mother-daughter dynamic. Claire screws up; Kate tries to save the day. The picture soon gets clearer still. “Mom, I’m clean,” Claire says, as addicts do.
If you have kept pace with American movies in the past 30 years, you will know how much raw feeling Moore can pack under the fixed, brittle grin her character wears here. You duly root for her, hoping for a new start at last. At the risk of a spoiler: not quite. Another set of earnest clichés may now come to mind: rehab, tears and hugs. Instead, events spin off in thriller-ish directions, the kind that arise when people need cash.
Sydney Sweeney plays Kate’s addict daughter, returning home © Atsushi Nishijima
British director Michael Pearce is a canny fit for the material. His 2017 debut, Beast, was another skewed tale of the shocking things of which people are capable. Now, as the film changes tone, Pearce gives it the trappings of a horror movie. Addiction haunts the house, rattling door handles. Then, once things get twisty, the style heightens. Slo-mo unnerves. Camera angles get mischievous.
More than one bombshell will keep the plot ticking. Like all such things, you can wearily sniff, or happily enjoy. Personally, I’ll take the side of the kind of film that is neither the nth instalment of a franchise, nor fishing for an Oscar, but simply seeks to entertain while also giving you something to chew on. Echo Valley supplies just that. The real twist, artfully done, is that it becomes a movie with a dark Hitchcock tickle and a little extra depth: a teasing fable about the best laid plans of parenthood — and the perils of a mother’s love.
★★★★☆
In cinemas and on Apple TV+ from June 13