Echo Valley

You just want to punch the air and shout, “Yes, this is what it was like in the before times! With actual acting, crafted lines and plot!” Read full review

Inglesby wittily repurposes such modern plot-wreckers as mobile phone tracking and instant messaging into real dramatic assets, while as a director, Pearce is a savvy stylist who knows exactly when to rein things in: imagine Jacques Audiard with a cricket conscience perched on his shoulder whose only job is to say “steady on”.

Echo Valley is a tense thriller propelled by strong performances from Moore and Sweeney and a never scarier Domnhall Gleeson. Read full review

Sweeney gives the movie its extra spark, its sense of occasion. Read full review

When you’re simply looking for something semi-interesting to stream, stories like these don’t necessarily require great actors, but great actors are the reason some of them still reverberate in our memory decades later. Read full review

The handful of overly contrived moments disappoint, but don’t amount to an insurmountable betrayal, because Echo Valley delivers where it matters. Read full review

It’s no insult, though still true, to say that director Michael Pearce doesn’t quite have the Hitchcockian filmmaking chops to turn the silly into something sublime. Read full review

It’s all handled reasonably well, with just enough twists to hold the interest and just enough attention to the logic of it all for Brand Ingelsby’s script to make sense — more or less. Read full review

An intelligent, sapphic-tinged and superbly acted rural thriller with Moore, Sweeney, Gleeson and Shaw all on fine form, only slightly dampened by some blatant product placement. Read full review

There’s some fun to be had in watching Echo Valley shift into a battle of wits between Moore and Gleeson, as both actors mine devious nuance from the thin gruel of a paperback thriller. Read full review

A potpourri of general genre genericness, never making enough noise to rattle, or even produce an echo. Read full review

On the surface, this may sound like a nice, trashy little diversion. We can confirm the “trashy” part, and you know that any time you give Moore the chance to either weep, become enraged or, in a best case scenario, do both at once, it’s going to reap some sort of dividends. Read full review

Echo Valley feels in need of an additional twist, or one fewer — to either commit to being foremost a drama about addiction or to go harder into the suspense, rather than ending up an awkward hybrid of the two. Read full review

Michael Pearce’s grim thriller “Echo Valley” is a melodramatic mess redeemed by the performances of the film’s exceptional cast. Read full review

Battling downpours and an abundance of nighttime shadows, the cinematographer Benjamin Kracun adds a classy, coppery richness where he can. But “Echo Valley,” directed by Michael Pearce (whose 2018 feature debut, “Beast,” mingled equally dissonant themes with far greater dexterity), is ultimately undone by Brad Ingelsby’s distracted script. Read full review

It’s not without its charms, but its slow, rote genre elements yield no rewards, robbing Echo Valley of its thrills in the process. Read full review

Pearce does have a good sense of how to direct actors and give the story something closer to genuine tension in how patient he can be in the focused dialogue scenes, though the story itself is too shaky for him to hold it together. Read full review

To the extent Echo Valley sporadically connects or has some saving grace, it’s because of the efforts of its other players, behind but especially in front of the camera. Read full review

Director Michael Pearce, who previously made 2021’s decent crime thriller Encounter starring Riz Ahmed, keeps the pace brisk but never really punches up the source material. Read full review

Watching Echo Valley isn't long at a little over an hour and a half. However, even in that amount of time, I had hoped to witness more of the story and fewer hollow twists. Read full review

The estimable cast all do their utmost but the overall effect is frustratingly implausible. Read full review

A story that might have been benefited by being allowed to breathe over a six-episode arc instead feels rushed and schematic rather than lived-in. Read full review