Drop Review: Meghann Fahy Dominates Christopher Landon’s Taut, Predominantly Single-Setting Thriller
Imagine if you are given a title called Drop, and the premise has to be related to or inspired by iPhone’s AirDrop feature. How do you make a movie out of it? For Christopher Landon, working from Jillian Jacobs and Chris Roach’s screenplay, Drop gets a Red Eye-like cinematic treatment. But instead of setting the movie in the confines of a commercial airliner, the story takes place predominantly in the restaurant. A fine dining restaurant called Palate, to be exact — elegant decor, ceiling-to-floor glass windows overlooking the illuminated cityscape. A perfect place for dating and get-togethers.
And that’s what Violet (Meghann Fahy) is looking forward to. Or at least she thinks she will. She’s a single mother who lives with her beloved little son, Toby (Jacob Robinson). The night when she decides to go out on a date, it will be her first in a long time, ever since her husband died. Her younger sister, Jen (Violett Beane), who helps to babysit her, tells Violet to just have fun with her date. Anyone who went on a first date can relate to Violet’s situation. Being nervous is one of them.
Upon arrival, she heads to a bar to have a glass of wine while waiting for her date, Henry (Brandon Sklenar). From there, she meets a few people there from a guy, where she accidentally bumps into him to a friendly bartender, a middle-aged man nervous about his first date, and a pianist who enjoys flirting with Violet. Then comes the message via the DigiDrop app in the form of a meme popping up on her phone. It may seem harmless, but as more drops appear, the memes start to get weird.
Is someone in the restaurant trying to pull a prank on her? We learn that the DigiDrop only works within a 50-foot radius. That means it can’t be anyone sending to her from the outside. Even after her date finally arrives, she keeps getting the drops. Except that the subsequent drops become more sinister before they become a threat explicitly targeted at her. She is soon given a series of instructions that she must follow or risk having her kids and her sister killed by a masked assailant. This is especially true after she also receives a message about her home security footage. So, why her? And more importantly, what does the person sending all those drops want from her?
Landon made good use of the single location to evoke a sense of claustrophobia. The escalating suspense, in the meantime, mostly comes from the already-nervous Violet trying to outwit the mysterious person who keeps sending her the drops without causing a commotion. Not to mention the movie’s single-night setting helps to ratchet up the tension like a ticking bomb waiting to explode. And yet, the person is always one step ahead, no matter what she does.
The movie works well because of Meghann Fahy’s committed performance, and even with the premise sounding like a far-fetched genre fare, she manages to make her role believable without succumbing to over-the-top histrionics. No doubt a breakthrough for Fahy in a feature film after spending most of her career in television series like One Life to Live, The Bold Type and of course, The White Lotus, where she plays Daphne Sullivan. She also pairs well with Brandon Sklenar, where their on-screen chemistry immediately clicks from the awkwardness of their first date before they finally warm up to each other, despite getting off on the wrong foot.
To make things more interesting, Landon throws in a few red herrings, allowing us to play armchair detectives trying to figure out who’s the culprit in the restaurant behind the malicious drops. Although the movie tends to lag a little in the middle part, which could have used a little more tightening on the screw, Drop remains a first-rate thriller. And after all the thrilling buildups, Landon pulls all the stops by culminating in a white-knuckle finale.
