Drop – Review

Cert – 15, Run-time – 1 hour 35 minutes, Director – Christopher Landon

On her first date in years, widowed mother Violet (Meghann Fahy) is plagued by messages from an unknown phone telling her to kill her date (Brandon Sklenar) or her son (Jacob Robinson) back home dies.

There’s a shift in the final stages of Drop where it turns from a suspenseful thriller into truly daft territory. While there’s dark comedy sprinkled amongst the escalating tension the sudden turn, you’ll know it as soon as you see it, is such a shift that it induces a different kind of laughter simply due to the immediacy of the switch. Yet, maybe because it doesn’t construct an entire third act, and it feels like the film allowing the growing bubble to finally burst as it nears an end, there’s something about this ending which works and doesn’t cause things to entirely swerve off the rails.

For the most part Drop is a well-contained, single-location thriller. Set in a fancy, skyline restaurant widowed mother Violet (Meghann Fahy) is on her first date in years. Leaving her five-year-old son Toby (Jacob Robinson) with her sister (Violett Beane), she’s nervous but just fearing an awkward date. Not to look at her home security cameras and see a gunman lurking in the shadows, ready to attack if she doesn’t follow the instructions being sent to her via an Airdrop-esque app from an unknown phone in the restaurant – not helped by the fact that everyone within the 50 foot radius seems to be cancelled out by an identifiable profile picture.

The instructions sent to Violet constantly increase the stakes for her, and increase the threat of not just her son being killed but also those in the restaurant with her, including her date, Henry (Brandon Sklenar). With each image or message Violet receives, shown in daunting form as large text hangs over her shoulder (and in mirror reflections), the tension ramps up. Director Christopher Landon has great fun with Jillian Jacobs and Chris Roach’s screenplay, drawing out various instances and working with the cast to show the various thoughts and doubts running through their minds – whether it be the lives that are on the line, or the date simply not going well.

Every now and then a dash of humour is brought into the proceedings without disturbing the flow and rise of the suspense. Sometimes from the direct situations at hand, other times from the first-shift waiter (Jeffery Self, consistently funny when on-screen) dealing with Violet’s erratic behaviour. Contrast that with references to domestic violence, a factor of Violet’s marriage before the death of her husband, and there’s a number of well-handled details and elements working under the surface of this tight and effectively-told thriller. One which still manages to capturing the core thrilling nature with its deliriously entertaining tension, and to some extent silliness of the final stages.

Tense and darkly comic, even in the silliness of its closing stages, Drop is a tight and brilliantly entertaining thriller effectively confined to one location and really getting across the mixed thoughts and worries of the central date and beyond.