‘Echo Valley’ Review: Sydney Sweeney & Julianne Moore Lead Apple TV+’s (Mostly) Thrilling Drama

2025 has given us too many movies fueled by weak IP and not nearly enough (good) movies that are original ideas executed with quality. Echo Valley, however, might be the turning point in that sentiment. Coming as a breath of fresh air after their recent string of duds, Apple TV+’s latest release, helmed by Julianne Moore, who has become a reliable in-house talent for Apple, and Sydney Sweeney, who continues to prove her movie stardom, is engaging, entertaining, and while not excellent, surprisingly good.

‘Echo Valley’ Is a Thrilling Expedition That We Don’t Get Very Much of Anymore

Kate Garrett (Moore) owns Echo Valley Farm — an expansive piece of land that holds her decaying house that possesses a substantial crack in the roof, her barn, her horses, and the lessons that she gives with them. Her wife, Patty, recently passed nine months prior, and while the struggles of paying the bills that the farm demands is taxing (this situation allows for a sublime 90-second performance from Kyle MacLachlan), they are no comparison to the constantly changing level of stress she endures from the relationship she has with her daughter, Claire (Sweeney). A junkie who has dropped out of rehab more than once, Claire turns to her mom whenever she needs money for “clothes and supplies,” knowing her mom’s unconditional love will always be there to say yes.

But how many times of saying yes is too many times? When Claire loses her abusive boyfriend’s half kilo of drugs and shows up one night at the farm covered in blood, Kate gets wrapped up in the consequences. This idea — how far Kate is willing to go as a mother to protect and love the daughter she so clearly regrets not being able to raise into the person she envisioned — creates some of the most effective character studying that this movie partakes in and is a great dissection into the dichotomy of an emotionally abusive relationship.

Unfortunately, it is sidelined to make room for the rest of the movie. Enter Jackie — the drug dealer who needs his $10,000 back from Claire and Kate one way or another. Played thrillingly by Domhnall Gleeson in a performance that exhibits a side he often doesn’t get to explore, which includes true scumbag energy, Jackie takes matters into his own hands.

‘Echo Valley’ Diverges Into Two Different Journeys

Echo Valley sets up one movie — a film that promises to explore the deep caverns of parental remorse and the equally dark burrows of childhood letdown — yet delivers on a completely different one. The one given is a rather hard pivot from the one teased, culminating in a tense thriller that omits Sydney Sweeney to a distasteful extent but engages in a rather successful procedural-type narrative.

Mileage may vary on this changeup because both paths feel like their own movie, and both are prosperous as their own movie. The character-study type “movie” does an effective job of exploring how to cope with losing someone you love in real time, both with Kate’s loss of her wife and the gradual loss of Claire. It’s rather drab, sure, but there is a sequence led by a needle drop of Robyn’s “Dancing On My Own” that allows audiences to enjoy Julianne Moore on a makeshift dance floor, which is always special.

However, the abandonment of difficult thematic content of abusive relationships of differing shapes and sizes feels like a disappointment, even if it leads to a pretty entertaining “drug dealer has the upper hand and things get wild to escape the situation” type thriller.

Apple TV+’s Latest Thriller Is Entertaining, Explosive, and Engaging at Its Core

The second “movie” in Echo Valley is immensely engaging and contains a monstrously effective twist that is so rare to get in films nowadays, especially original stories. The seething score, delivered by Jed Kurzel who has previously worked on projects such as The Order and Dev Patel‘s directorial debut Monkey Man, drives the taught thriller through its twists and turns, allowing it to possess an energy that elevates to mesmerizing levels during certain sequences. Cinematographer Benjamin Kracun, who recently served as the director of photography on the Academy Award-winning film The Substance, enlists some neat overhead visuals and POV shots that add a flair to its overall appearance. Combined, they create a surprisingly fruitful movie at its core.

At the end of the 100-minute runtime, Echo Valley delivers a gripping and dark procedural and abandons its more thematically engaging ideas in the barn out back, for both better and worse. It’s a tough split because both avenues work to varying degrees within themselves, and unfortunately, lack a strong bond with one another. Alas, perhaps that’s the goal of the film — to explore the reckoning of the loss of one thing with the presence of its antithesis, and vice versa. Or perhaps Echo Valley is just an above-average Apple TV+ Original that feels like much more than it is because of its movie star power, engaging premise, and lack of surrounding quality original content. Either way, it’s an effective exercise that is worth the journey.

Echo Valley is in select theaters and releases on Apple TV+ on June 13. Follow Agents of Fandom on socials for all the latest entertainment news and reviews.