If you think you’ve had a bad first date, Christopher Landon‘s “Drop” is here to take your worst nightmare and multiply it by a thousand. It also adds a measured yet sincere performance from Meghann Fahy as a woman who finds herself being threatened over airdrop (a function where a nearby stranger can connect to your phone to share images and texts) with messages telling her that she must kill her date or her son dies. This combination is one that provides all the pieces you need for what should be a taut little thriller that gets you in and out in just over 90 minutes.
Unfortunately, missing from the film’s equation is the earned tension to make this confined though haphazardly executed premise (which essentially asks “What if we remade 2002’s “Phone Booth” with smartphones?”) fully work. While Landon has made fun genre outings before with “Happy Death Day,” “Happy Death Day 2U,” and “Freaky,” “Drop” is, at its best, never more than just down the middle. At its worst, it’s an oddly clunky experience that strands its performers with little to work with. It’s not a complete misfire like Landon’s previous film, the forgettable family-friendly flick “We Have a Ghost,” but the few bursts of thrills it finds from some creative presentation aren’t enough to overcome all that repeatedly falls flat in the stiff story.
The film, which premiered Sunday at SXSW, first drops us into the life of the caring therapist and single mother Violet (Fahy) as she is getting back out on the dating scene after a terrifying trauma that we see in several extended flashbacks. Following a brief introduction to her sister and son, who stay at home as Violet goes on her date, she heads to a swanky high-rise restaurant. As she awaits her date Henry (Brandon Sklenar), we get to know various people in the establishment from a kind bartender to an awkward man on his own first date. None of them are particularly deeply-written characters in a way that would make us care about them as things go on. Instead, their introductions are merely about setting the stage for the game of guessing Violet will have to play in order to survive as she starts getting threatening airdrops after Henry arrives. Somehow, this mystery person can see and hear everything she does. Thus, she can’t easily alert anyone to what is going on, leaving her backed into a corner.
Where the problems arise is how the film also gets trapped in its own corner almost right from the jump. Some of this is by design, as what tension the film does find comes from the feeling of Violet being surveilled at every turn. But it also feels as though the film is just bouncing off the walls it put in place for itself until a predictable final reveal. Violet is given all she can by Fahy and we remain invested in each attempt she makes to break free, though there is also a lack of imagination in the writing as to how far she goes. Where a film like the similarly staged “Trap” was, yes, ludicrous in so many ways, it also showed how a more precise ratcheting up of tension can get us to go along with the more fun, bigger leaps it takes.
“Drop,” save for an excellent supporting turn by Jeffery Self as the duo’s chaotic waiter who gets all of the most-earned laughs, is otherwise without any of the precise ratcheting up of the tension or the big leaps it desperately needs. Though Landon demonstrates flair in how he captures the messages being sent by having them show up in big lettering as opposed to just on Violet’s screen, the rest of the story itself is mostly just going through the motions.
It may be just slick enough in small slivers to win some over, but audiences should raise their standards for what they get out of this date. If you were out for dinner with this movie, you’d likely find yourself wondering when the check would finally arrive so you could go out and have a more fun time elsewhere.
