It’s a great factor director Christopher Landon‘s exit from the “Scream” franchise cleared his schedule: The punchy if risible single-location thriller “Drop” delivers a much more pleasurable jolt than any I.P. may have. Right here, “The Daring Kind” and “The White Lotus” TV comedy breakout Meghann Fahy proves herself a terrific (and Hitchcock-shade-of-blonde) style actress as a traumatized widow on the worst first date of her life. Fortunately, that first date is within the soothing, good-looking presence of Brandon Sklenar (“It Ends With Us,” one other film about the place he involves the rescue of a lady who’s survived abuse) as a press photographer with baggage of his personal.
Working a cool 90 minutes, “Drop” takes place nearly solely in a top-of-the-world type of high-rise restaurant in Chicago, the place Violet (Fahy) is assembly Henry (Sklenar) off a Tinder-like app, and the place this seems to be Violet’s first date after surviving a brutally abusive ex. How “Drop” attracts a line between the traumas Violet suffered by the hands of the daddy of her baby and people she is going to by the tip of this tightening noose of a film will rankle some viewers. However Landon and screenwriters Jillian Jacobs and Christopher Roach (“Reality or Dare”) are, on the finish of the day (or a minimum of this hour and a half of yours), making a movie that doesn’t proclaim to make a press release about home abuse points; it simply finally ends up doing so.
Violet is a therapist who’s making an attempt to get again on the market into the courting recreation. She hires her sister Jen (Violett Beane) to not solely babysit her son Toby (Jacob Robinson) but in addition inadvertently provide trend recommendation, as Violet tends to put on unflattering garments that cowl her up from high to toe (“I appear like I’m taking part in bingo at a relaxation dwelling”). Jen sends her out in a pink velvet quantity that’s way more giving towards the creativeness, however is the type of factor that Violet, now used to masking up her emotional scars, is now not so comfy carrying. Neither is Violet notably comfy in her pores and skin on the whole, and Fahy radiates disappointment — which is then interchanged with desperation because the plot kicks into gear — as a lady who feels ill-fit to be getting again on the market to start with, her confidence stripped all the way down to a wire by an ex who as soon as held her at gunpoint.
In a little bit of red-herring foreboding — and in a sequence the place there’s a complete faculty of such herring — Henry is late to their dinner date, affording Violet time alone on the bar the place she begins receiving threatening drops on her telephone. The dorky, ScreenLife-adjacent know-how launched into the film (which additionally contains outsized and dramatically embossed textual content messages emblazoned throughout the display that evoke extra refined Phrase Artwork) is a little bit narratively clunky and contrived. Why Violet, an abuse sufferer, makes her id accessible on a drop-sharing platform that makes the identities of everybody within the restaurant seen is unnecessary however is simply one other reminder that that is solely a film making an attempt under no circumstances to stick to actuality however as a substitute solely to bend it for the sake of thrills and chills.
The opening sequence successfully introduces a set of potential suspects who could possibly be sending threatening drops that ultimately direct Violet to the safety cameras in her dwelling, the place a masked determine with a silenced pistol is standing in the lounge. These suspects embrace the bartender (Gabrielle Ryan), a tragic sack of a person on a blind date (Reed Diamond), an imperious hostess (Sarah McCormack), and an unctuous, boozy piano participant (Ed Weeks). Making issues extra tense, by the point Violet settles in with Henry (Sklenar) at their desk to contemplate a menu together with South African lobster and lemon oyster soup, whoever’s sending stated drops is commanding she preserve the date going for so long as attainable. In the meantime, she’s having a visual panic assault, particularly because the drops begin to trace at a extra sinister political plot that includes Henry — who works for the Chicago mayor — and a vial of liquid fentanyl that she’s requested to place into his drink.
Even their waiter (a scene-stealingly flamboyant and hilarious Jeffrey Self) looks like he could possibly be in on the conspiracy as Landon and cinematographer Marc Spicer play with lighting and zoom results to light up a patron or server or barkeep’s potential implication within the thriller. Questions like why Henry stays on this date, or how lengthy Violet may probably get away with stalling for time within the lavatory whereas bending to the drop sender’s will, stretch the bounds of credulity that threaten to overhaul “Drop’s” effectiveness in any respect.
A wildly ridiculous, over-the-top third act pushes “Drop” into cinematic-shootout motion film territory the place, at one level, somebody is hanging suspended from the facet of a constructing by a tablecloth. “Drop” is way more efficient within the sparse moments the place, for instance, Henry and Violet share intimacies with one another, or the place Violet hatches intelligent methods to get Henry again to (or away from) their desk. Landon additionally has a reverence for small objects and their capability to foreshadow or narratively flip the story, like a watch, or a bowl of panna cotta, or an RC truck, that Hitchcock would admire. “Drop” works greatest in its nimblest moments, however finally we should always don’t have anything however gratitude for a film that has nearly zero bloat and tells an efficient, authentic story in 90 minutes, even when this modern package deal is made up of some shopworn tropes.
Grade: B-
“Drop” premiered at SXSW 2025. Common Photos releases the movie April 11.
Need to keep updated on IndieWire’s movie evaluations and significant ideas? Subscribe right here to our newly launched e-newsletter, In Assessment by David Ehrlich, through which our Chief Movie Critic and Head Opinions Editor rounds up one of the best new evaluations and streaming picks together with some unique musings — all solely accessible to subscribers.