“Drop” Proves Stressful

Drop (Christopher Landon, 2025) 2½ out of 5 stars

There is a moment in the final climax of Drop where one of the primary antagonists removes his mask. We cut from his now-revealed face to that of the surprised protagonist. The film pauses for her surprise. But our reaction is more than muted. Who the hell is he?

That brief summary encapsulates many of the problems of the often-ridiculous, though nevertheless mostly watchable, new film from Christopher Landon (We Have a Ghost). Starring Meghann Fahy (Netflix’s The Perfect Couple series) as Violet, a widowed mother of a five-year-old boy going on her first date since her husband’s death, Drop follows the events of the evening as they take a turn for the worse. What starts as a sweetly romantic dinner quickly becomes a dance with death.

Violet’s would-be suitor is Henry (Brandon Sklenar, It Ends with Us), a photographer who works for the city’s mayor (we are in Chicago). Before he arrives (late), Violet has a few interactions with other patrons of the very fancy, top-floor restaurant where they’re meeting. Back home, her sister, Jen (Violett Beane, Renner), babysits Toby, Violet’s boy. All is taken care for the night to be a success.

Except that Violet starts to receive unwanted messages from a social-media app, DigiDrop, each one more threatening than the last. DigiDrop allows users within a small radius to contact other users (whether they want to be contacted or not). Before long, these messages prove a major impediment to her hopes for a great night out. And then the mysterious stranger begins to order her to do things.

What ensues is a stress-fest as we watch Violet struggle to do anything but comply. Unfortunately, her sister and son are being watched, too, so she has no choice. Little by little, she gets more and more sucked in as an unwilling pawn in someone else’s scheme.

Fahy is quite good, her character’s conflict effectively portrayed. Unfortunately, there’s no good way to make much of her dialogue with Sklenar work. Henry stays in the restaurant because the script demands that he do so, even as Violet’s increasingly ridiculous actions would make a normal person (as in, not a movie construct) flee.

Still, the tension of the situation is not without its thrilling moments, the will-she-or-won’t-she anxiety mounting with each successive scene. Adding to Violet’s three-dimensionality is a backstory about her married past that we gather through flashbacks. This domestic-abuse angle, however, while moving, can nevertheless feel exploitative, using trauma merely as a plot device.

Ultimately, Drop holds our interest, but only in same way that any outrageous set of circumstances might. The direction can feel lazy, stolen from better movies, or inept (as per the aforementioned mask reveal). Landon may not completely drop the cinematic ball, but he certainly fumbles it upon occasion.

Christopher Llewellyn Reed

Christopher Llewellyn Reed is a film critic, filmmaker, and educator, as well as Film Festival Today's Editor. A member of both the Online Film Critics Society (OFCS) and the Washington DC Area Film Critics Association (WAFCA), and a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic, Chris is, in addition, lead film critic at Hammer to Nail and the author of Film Editing: Theory and Practice.