Echo Valley parents guide

Echo Valley Parent Guide

This isn't Hitchcock, but it's a reasonably well constructed thriller.

Overall D

Apple TV+: When a troubled young woman shows up at home, hysterical and covered in someone else’s blood, her mother learns just how far she's willing to go to save her daughter.

Release date June 13, 2025

Violence C
Sexual Content B
Profanity D
Substance Use C

Why is Echo Valley rated R? The MPAA rated Echo Valley R for language throughout, some violence and drug material.

Run Time: 83 minutes

Parent Movie Review

Since the death of her wife, Kate (Julianne Moore) has struggled to get out of bed, let alone maintain the sizeable horse ranch she owns. Normally she offers riding lessons to make the place pay, but she hasn’t been up to it since her loss. The news gets worse: the expenses have just increased radically with the news that her barn is falling apart and will have to be rebuilt. To increase the difficulty, her daughter Claire (Sydney Sweeney) has just come home.

Claire is an opioid addict who has bounced in and out of her mom’s life, rehab, and any number of shady drug dens for the last couple of years, with her mother available as a perpetual enabler. This time, though, Claire isn’t just after her mother’s money. This time, Claire comes home covered in someone else’s blood, telling an impossible story about a body out by the lake. And this time, helping her daughter is going to mean a lot more for Kate than scraping together some money or a new phone. This time, it’s life and death.

I had a mixed experience with the movie. On the one hand, the cast is excellent and all of them deliver a strong performance. The pacing is consistent, the dialogue isn’t irritating (although it is sprinkled with profanity), and the setting is gorgeous. On the other hand, some of the twists in this plot don’t really work all that well, and while I think they wrap up neatly, they don’t always make sense.

Family audiences are going to have a bigger problem with the 70-or-so f-bombs lying around the script like so many land mines, and the plot has a lot to do with addiction and murder. So not an ideal choice for the kiddies. On the other hand, there’s very little on screen violence, no sexual content to speak of, and there are hardly any drugs to be seen either, so Echo Valley could be a solid choice for adult audiences looking for a thriller that isn’t going to get too messy.

Focus on those stellar performances and you’ll have a decent enough time skating over the thinner stretches of the plot. As with almost everything, it’s more fun if you don’t overthink it. This may not have the tight construction of a Hitchcock flick, but it’s an intriguing and dramatic thriller, and if that’s your genre, then this is probably worth a watch.

Directed by Michael Pearce. Starring Julianne Moore, Sydney Sweeney, Fiona Shaw. Running time: 83 minutes. Theatrical release June 13, 2025. Updated

Watch the trailer for Echo Valley

Echo Valley
Rating & Content Info

Why is Echo Valley rated R? Echo Valley is rated R by the MPAA for language throughout, some violence and drug material.

Violence: Characters are beaten or struck on several occasions. Several characters are threatened with death in explicit terms. A dead body is repeatedly seen.
Sexual Content:   There are several mild sexual references in dialogue.
Profanity: The script contains over 70 sexual expletives, 15 scatological curses, and frequent use of mild profanities and terms of deity.
Alcohol / Drug Use:   Adult characters are seen drinking, and one is dosed with a narcotic. There are references to drug use, addiction, and fatal overdose.

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Echo Valley Parents' Guide

Home Video

Related home video titles:

You can find more grounded looks at addiction in A Good Person, Four Good Days and Beautiful Boy. Some more female-led, remote thrillers include Those Who Wish Me Dead,Lou, Gone Girl, or for a scarier vibe, The Lodge or The Night House.