Could Sydney Sweeney be a murderer, and if so, would her mother Julianne Moore even care?
Such are the questions at the center of the highly-anticipated Apple Original Film “Echo Valley,” directed by “Beast” and “Encounter” filmmaker Michael Pearce and written by “Mare of Easttown” scribe Brad Inglesby. Sweeney stars as Claire, the troubled daughter of Kate (Moore), who shows up on her doorstep covered in someone else’s blood. “As Kate pieces together the shocking truth of what happened, she learns just how far a mother will go to try to save her child in this gripping tale of love, sacrifice and survival,” the logline reads. The film is set on the secluded Echo Valley Farm in Pennsylvania, with the tagline teasing that the feature is a “heart-pounding thriller about just how far a mother will go to save her child.”
Kyle MacLachlan, Edmund Donovan, Domnhall Gleeson, and Fiona Shaw co-star. “Echo Valley” is produced by Ridley Scott’s Scott Free Films and The Walsh Company, with Michael Pruss, Ingelsby, and Kevin Walsh for The Walsh Company under his multi-year Apple TV+ producing deal. Pruss and Ingelsby developed the script together. The film will be executive produced by Scott Greenberg, Scott Free’s Rebecca Feuer, and Nicole Jordan-Webber. Erika Olde and Sam Roseme will also executive produce through Black Bicycle Entertainment. Tanja Tawadjoh will co-produce.
Sweeney told Vanity Fair that she watched hundreds of YouTube videos of addicts interviewed on Los Angeles’ Skid Row to prepare to play Claire. She also drew from personal encounters with addicts as well. “I’ve had a lot of family members deal with addiction and then struggle with similar issues as Claire and her friends, and her group that she hangs out with,” Sweeney said. “I’ve kind of had firsthand experience with it. I mean, there’s a manipulation underneath a lot of it. But when there was love in the air in the room, you truly still felt it. The person that they are at the core, as buried as they might be, is still there.”
Director Pearce credited Sweeney for going all out for the role, saying, “It’s kind of spooky how quickly she can get to a very raw emotional place when you call ‘action,’ and she’s just straight away exactly where the character needs to be. Which is often a very place of extreme emotional duress. Then you’d call cut and maybe change your lens, and she’s very light. You’d call ‘action’ again, and she’s straight there in a matter of seconds.”
Pearce continued, “The way that she was screaming at Julianne, I thought she was going to burst her eardrum. It was so intense. But as soon as we called ‘cut,’ they were just laughing. They were just so happy to get their teeth stuck into such a meaty scene.”
And co-lead Moore hinted at just how twisted the film is: “These are my favorite kinds of movies: movies about relationships,” Moore said. “What will people do for one another? What kind of decisions do you make? How far will you go? I’m kind of curious what the reaction will be,” she says. “There will be a sense, certainly, among parents going, like, ‘well, would I do that? How far would I go?’ You’re left with those questions.”
“Echo Valley” premieres June 13 on Apple TV+. Check out the trailer below.
