It’s a good director Christopher LandonS exit from the “scream” franchise cleared its schedule: The Punchy IF Risible Simple-thriller “Drop” Delivers a much nicer jerk than any IP can have. Here “the bold type” and “The White Lotus” TV comedy Breakout Meghann Fahy Proves himself a fantastic (and Hitchcock-shade-of-blonde) genre player as a traumatized widow on the worst first date of her life. Fortunately, the first date in the soothing, handsome presence of Brandon is skilting (“It ends with us”, another movie about where he comes to the rescue of a woman who survived abuse) as a press photographer with her own luggage.
Run a cool 90 minutes, ”Drop“Takes place almost entirely in a top-in-world type of high-rise building in Chicago, where Violet (Fahy) meets Henry (Sklenar) from a Tinder-like app, and where this seems to be Violet’s first date after surviving a brutally abusive ex. How “Droppe” draws a line between the Violet of the Trauma that suffered in the hands of the father of her children and the ones she comes at the end of this austerity of a movie will rank some viewers. But Landon and screenwriter Jillian Jacobs and Christopher Roach (“truth or wave”) are at the end of the day (or at least this hour and a half of you), making a film It does not explain that they comment on problems with domestic abuse; It just stops doing it.
Violet is a therapist trying to get back into the dating game. She hires her sister Jen (Violet Beane) to not only babysite her son Toby (Jacob Robinson) but also unintentionally deliver modern council, because Violet has a tendency to wear flattering clothes that cover her up to toe (“I look like I play bingo at home”). Jen sends her out in a red velvet number that is much more to give to the imagination, but is the type that Violet, which now used to cover her emotional scars, is no longer so comfortable to carry. Violet is also not very comfortable in her skin in general, nor Fahy radiates sorrow — which is then the exchange of desperation when the action kicks in implement-like a woman who feels bad to be to be get back out there For starters, her confidence was abolished to a thread by an ex that once held her on weapons.
In a little red you prevent and in a sequence where there is a whole school with such herring-is Henry late until their dinner date, which gives Violet Time alone at the bar where she starts to get threatening drops on her phone. The dorky, screenlife-an-border technology introduced in the film (which also includes oversized and dramatically embossed text messages Emblazonated over the screen that produces more sophisticated word art) is a bit justified clumsy and contradictory. Why Violet, an abuse victim, makes her identity available on a platform that makes everyone in the restaurant visible is not meaningful but is just another reminder that this is Just a movie Do not try in any way to follow reality but instead just to bend it for tension and chill.
The opening sequence effectively introduces a suite with potential suspects who can send threatening drops that eventually target the violet to the safety cameras in her home, where a masked figure with a silent gun is in the living room. These suspects include the bartender (Gabrielle Ryan), a sad sack of a man on a blind date (Reed Diamond), an imperious hostess (Sarah McCormack) and an unpleasant, Boozy piano player (Ed Weeks). Making things more tense, when Violet settles in with Henry (Sklenar) at their table to consider a menu including South African lobster and lemon oyster soup, who sends said drops is that she keeps the date running for as long as possible. At the same time, she has a visible panic attack, especially when the drops begin to suggest a more unfortunate political plot involving Henry – who works for the Chicago mayor – and an injection bottle with liquid fentanyl that she has asked to put in his drink.
Even their waiter (a stage-stalking flamboyant and funny Jeffrey self) seems to be part of conspiracy such as Landon and Kinematographer Marc Spicer plays with lighting and zoom effects to illuminate a protector or server or barkeeps potential implication in the mystery. Questions that why Henry stays on this date, or how long Violet may be able to get away with staying in time in the bathroom while bend to the will of the drip transmitter, extends the limits of credibility that threatens to take over “drops” efficiency at all.
A very ridiculous, over-the-top third act shoots “drop” to the film-shootout action movie territory where someone at one point hangs hanging from the side of a building with a cloth. “Drop” is much more effective in the sparse moments where, for example, Henry and Violet share intimacy with each other, or where Violet hatches smart ways to get Henry back to (or away from) his table. Landon also has a reverence for small objects and their capacity to ashave or narrative turn the story, like a clock, or a bowl of pan Cotta, or an RC truck, which Hitchcock would appreciate. “Drop” works best in its narrowest moments, but in the end we should have nothing but gratitude for a movie that has almost zero inflating and tells an effective, original story in 90 minutes, although this elegant package consists of some Shopworn Tropes.
Rating: B-
“Drop” premiered at SXSW 2025. Universal Pictures release the film on April 11.
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