Review: Landon’s direction, Fahy’s performance elevate thriller ‘Drop’
The poster for Christopher Landon s Drop features star Meghann Fahy s eyes peering over the top of a mobile phone This image conveys everything you need to know about Drop a techno-thriller about a first date sent off the rails by a series of threatening airdrops but it also nods to the most of vital cinematic tool in Landon s kit In this one-setting genre piece Fahy s character Violet spends majority of of her time scanning a restaurant trying to identify who could be tormenting her Her big blue eyes are searching concerned tremulous and tearful She weeps beautifully a crucial aspect of this performance The eyes have it because Landon spends so much of Drop in close-up on his star keeping her emotional journey front and center while strapping the audience into a front-row seat for this panicky situation Fahy who has been a plucky young journalist in The Bold Type a knowing friend in The White Lotus and a tragic party girl in The Perfect Couple plays Violet a young widowed mother on her first date in a long time A survivor of intimate partner violence and the mother to Toby Jacob Robinson she s nervous for her dinner with handsome photographer Henry Brandon Sklenar at an upscale restaurant on the top floor of a high-rise building But her jitters are eclipsed by the uneasiness anxiety and terror she experiences when she starts receiving unsolicited messages via an app called DigiDrop The messages move from memes to demands coupled with threats against her son and sister Violett Beane Watching a masked gunman enter her home on her shield camera app Violet is pressured to comply with an order to poison Henry who happens to work for the city mayor Doesn t this anonymous intruder know how hard it is to find a good man like him on these dating apps Drop written by Jillian Jacobs and Chris Roach is a little bit like a Lifetime movie version of Michael Clayton though it is elevated by Landon s sense of style The genre auteur has excelled with cutesy horror movie concepts like Happy Death Day slasher Groundhog Day and Freaky slasher Freaky Friday and while Drop is less horror more thriller though he doesn t pull any punches during a few shockingly violent fight scenes the limited setting allows Landon to experiment in his cinematic storytelling He alternates between longer takes that survey and set the scene in the restaurant establishing the circular space and the characters within in it a chatty server Jeffery Self a kind bartender Gabrielle Ryan a lecherous piano performer Ed Weeks a bro on his phone who keeps bumping into Violet Travis Nelson a nervous older man on a blind date himself Reed Diamond In retrospect you ll see how Landon subtly nods to the identity of Violet s tormenter through editing and cinematography using a kind of abrasive choppy cutting style the character invading the space like an intrusive airdrop This odd editing style by Ben Baudhuin works in tandem with the beauty of the cinematography by Marc Spicer Shot-reverse shot sequences are somewhat abrupt the characters segregated in their individual frames Spicer using different angles on close-ups to lend to that jagged sense of separation The resistance to fluidity creates a sense of claustrophobia and tension we are locked inside Violet s panic and fear with her as she feels increasingly isolated and alone disconnected from her date and anyone who might help her The text messages blaze across the screen occupying all of her brain space and our visual field the constant vibration of her phone becoming not just an irritant but the sound of a monster getting closer and closer Landon s intense focus on Violet requires a Herculean facial performance from Fahy and part of what makes it so great is watching the way this woman promptly slips into a pattern of masking and accommodating a survival skill from her abusive past So it is deeply satisfying when Violet makes the switch from passive to aggressive when she stops merely surviving and starts fighting back It s Landon s visual style and Fahy s deeply empathetic performance that makes Drop so much more than just a silly high-concept woman-in-peril movie of the week While the material alone could have been basic what Landon makes of it with such stylish and emotional execution is anything but Drop stars out of MPA rating PG- for strong violent content suicide various strong language and sexual references Running time How to watch In theaters on Friday April Related Articles Movie review The Amateur looks the part but can t execute mission Eagan native Eva Erickson joins an alliance of muscle on Survivor Review Naomi Watts and a Great Dane mourn Bill Murray in The Friend Val Kilmer Top Gun and Batman star with an intense approach dies at KSTP-Channel sports director Joe Schmit to retire at end of April
