Drop

The film Drop gets off to a strong start with a rather surprising and somewhat frightening opening sequence in which various objects are propelled across the screen, including broken glass, a broken clock, and red flowers, accompanied by oppressive music. The dark staging does not bode well and immediately draws us into a disturbing world.

Violet, a young single widow with her little boy Toby, is in a good mood but somewhat intimidated and anxious. She is no longer used to going out or dressing up and is getting ready for a dinner date with a friend she recently met, a man named Henry. Her sister Jen can only encourage her and reassure her about this new romantic adventure. But who is Violet really? A flashback sheds light on her past and helps us better understand her journey, her nervousness, and her weaknesses.

The setting for their date is magnificent. To get there, you have to walk down a long, mysterious yellow hallway that leads to the restaurant's huge, sumptuous dining room. Here, everything is beauty, luxury, fine food, and stylish waiters. Many couples are seated at tables, and in this romantic setting, Violet and Henry can't help but have a wonderful time away from their worries, even though Violet's mind is elsewhere, often looking at her phone, thinking about her child at home with her sister.

The film suddenly takes a more dramatic turn during the meal when the young woman receives a series of disturbing, repetitive short messages on her cell phone. Skillfully, director Christopher Landon slowly but surely creates an atmosphere of strangeness and fear, leaving us wondering why these calls are coming. The intensity of the staging is at its peak, surprising and unsettling us, as a feeling of apprehension gradually turns to fear. Meghann Fahy's portrayal of Violet is remarkable for its humanity and the accuracy of her reactions in the face of adversity. The restaurant is no longer the idyllic, peaceful place it was at the beginning, but a strange place where someone may be out to harm her. Henry, played by Brandon Sklenar, is reassuring and understanding, counterbalancing his girlfriend's emotions.

The vast majority of the scenes in Drop take place in a single location, the restaurant, but the pace of the film is such that the viewer doesn't mind; they get caught up in the game and become their own detective. We ask ourselves questions and go from one surprise to another. Who is Henry really? Are the people at the next table what they claim to be? What will Violet do? The mystery is palpable, especially with the nod to the long, strangely shaped yellow corridor that leads to the restaurant, as if we were caught in a fourth dimension with no way out.
 This 90-minute feature film is easy to watch and has the charm of mixing romantic and comical moments (with the novice waiter) with dark, frightening passages, the perfect ingredients for a thrilling, captivating film. The script will delight fans of this genre. Drop is a spellbinding thriller with breathless suspense that never lets up.

Drop
Directed by Christopher Landon
Written by Jillian Jacobs, Chris Roach
Produced by Michael Bay, Jason Blum, Brad Fuller, Cameron Fuller, Sam Lerner
Starring Meghann Fahy, Brandon Sklenar, Violett Beane, Jeffery Self
Cinematography: Marc Spicer
Edited by Ben Baudhuin
Music by Bear McCreary
Production companies: Blumhouse Productions, Platinum Dunes, Wild Atlantic Pictures
Distributed by Universal Pictures (United States), Universal Pictures Internatioanl France (France)
Release dates: March 9, 2025 (SXSW), April 11, 2025 (United States), April 23, 2025 (France)
Running time: 95 minutes

Seen on Thursday, April 17, 2025 at Publicis Champs-Elysées

Cookie's Mark:

Drop, directed by Christopher Landon, is an elegant and modern thriller that manages to be both contemporary and classically structured. Set almost entirely in a chic restaurant in a Chicago skyscraper, the film skillfully reinvents the single-location suspense format for the digital age, using the ubiquitous presence of smartphones as the main vehicle for terror. Blending psychological tension, sophisticated intrigue, and emotional trauma, Drop teeters between the plausible and the absurd, but thanks to confident direction, convincing performances, and polished production values, it succeeds more often than it fails.

At its core, Drop could be likened to an intimate play that skillfully exploits the claustrophobic feel of its setting to create a tense atmosphere. Violet (Meghann Fahy), a widowed therapist and single mother, ventures into the world of dating for the first time in years. Her date with Henry (Brandon Sklenar), a polite and attentive photographer with whom she has been exchanging messages for months, is set in an upscale restaurant called Palate, a completely fictional and gleaming environment designed specifically for the film. But what starts as a potentially awkward evening filled with romantic tension quickly turns into a digital nightmare when Violet begins receiving anonymous messages via a Bluetooth-style app called DigiDrop. The messages quickly escalate from slightly disturbing memes to explicit threats targeting her five-year-old son and sister, who are at home under the watchful eye of her security system. From that moment on, the film locks into a frenetic pace that rarely lets up, building its suspense on the simple but terrifying concept of a woman forced to act against her will under the gaze of an invisible manipulator.

What sets Drop apart from many tech thrillers is not the novelty of its premise, but the confidence with which it is executed. Christopher Landon directs with a palpable sense of rhythm and great visual creativity, using bold overlays of text and filmed images to create a hyper-stylized aesthetic that underscores Violet's sense of disorientation and entrapment. The way messages appear on screen—in large font, sometimes right in the middle of the frame—evokes the visual language of meme culture, while using it to create suspense. At the same time, the restaurant transforms throughout the film, from a glamorous setting to a scene of suspicion, where every waiter, bartender, and customer becomes a potential suspect. It's a narrative structure that exploits the timeless thrill of the crime novel, refracted through the prism of Bluetooth and surveillance-era paranoia.

Much of the film's effectiveness owes to Meghann Fahy's central performance, which brings a remarkable emotional range to a character oscillating between internalized trauma and external panic. Violet is not written as a conventional victim, but as a woman whose past experiences have shaped her survival instinct. Her history of domestic violence, introduced in a harrowing opening sequence and explored further in subsequent flashbacks, is not treated as mere backstory, but is central to the emotional arc of the story. Fahy embodies Violet with palpable tension, using silence, micro-expressions, and carefully modulated dialogue to portray a woman who is doing everything in her power to maintain control in an environment designed to strip her of it. Her chemistry with Brandon Sklenar is understated but believable, and the film wisely avoids turning their dynamic into a predictable and perilous romance. Instead, their relationship serves to highlight Violet's vulnerability and resilience, allowing both characters to exist beyond gender archetypes.

The supporting cast adds color without overwhelming the narrative. Jeffery Self, as the zealous and slightly deranged waiter, provides a necessary dose of levity that never detracts from the overall tone. The bartender played by Gabrielle Ryan and the awkward date played by Reed Diamond contribute to the film's ecosystem of red herrings, while the restaurant itself, with its dramatic lighting and labyrinthine layout, becomes an extension of the themes of surveillance and performance explored in the film. Jillian Jacobs and Chris Roach's screenplay is economical, avoiding unnecessary exposition and relying on the immediacy of the plot to maintain the pace. Every detail, from the scope of the DigiDrop app to the strategic placement of hidden cameras and microphones, is designed to keep the narrative focused, and while some twists feel overly contrived, they're executed with enough skill to maintain the suspension of disbelief.

As Drop approaches its conclusion, the film trades some of its realistic tension for cinematic action, leading to a spectacular climax. While the sudden shift to more overtly cinematic territory, with broken windows, rooftop stunts, and a final confrontation on the side of a skyscraper, may undermine credibility, it also feels like the natural culmination of an escalation of stakes. The transition from psychological suspense to physical danger may not satisfy all viewers, particularly those who became attached to the more restrained first half of the film, but it reinforces Violet's transformation from a cornered character to a woman who regains control of her life in the most literal sense. In the end, the film returns to its emotional roots, reminding the audience that the real triumph is not the defeat of the antagonist, but Violet's survival on her own terms.

Thematically, Drop addresses a number of contemporary concerns without falling into didacticism. The pervasive anxiety of being watched, the erosion of privacy through technology, and the psychological cost of maintaining composure in a hostile environment are all integral parts of the film's DNA. There is also a clear commentary on the lasting trauma caused by abuse and the long, nonlinear process of regaining autonomy. The fact that this is communicated largely through genre conventions and suspense mechanisms rather than direct exposition is to the film's credit. Landon lets these ideas emerge naturally, trusting the viewer to connect the dots. This restraint, combined with the film's kinetic energy and visual inventiveness, makes Drop a rare thriller that is both entertaining and thematically powerful.

Ultimately, Drop succeeds where so many thrillers fail: it creates sustained tension in a confined space, carried by a compelling protagonist and enhanced by a touch of absurdity that keeps the experience engaging without derailing it. While its ambitious concept doesn't hold up to close scrutiny and some narrative twists require a healthy dose of suspension of disbelief, the film makes up for it with its pacing, atmosphere, and emotion. This isn't just a film about digital threats, it's also a film about the lingering specters of trauma, the difficulty of navigating trust, and the courage it takes to return to the world after being broken by it. Christopher Landon is undoubtedly a gifted director who confirms everything we think of him after the highly successful Happy Death Day (2017) and Happy Death Day 2U (2019), Freaky (2021) and We Have a Ghost (2023).

Drop
Directed by Christopher Landon
Written by Jillian Jacobs, Chris Roach
Produced by Michael Bay, Jason Blum, Brad Fuller, Cameron Fuller, Sam Lerner
Starring Meghann Fahy, Brandon Sklenar, Violett Beane, Jeffery Self
Cinematography: Marc Spicer
Edited by Ben Baudhuin
Music by Bear McCreary
Production companies: Blumhouse Productions, Platinum Dunes, Wild Atlantic Pictures
Distributed by Universal Pictures (United States), Universal Pictures Internatioanl France (France)
Release dates: March 9, 2025 (SXSW), April 11, 2025 (United States), April 23, 2025 (France)
Running time: 95 minutes

Seen on April 23, 2025, at Gaumont Disney Village, Theater 15, seat C19.

Mulder's Mark: