In the three-year gap between my starter and trophy wives, I had some terrible dates with terrible women. One meeting turned out to be the Worst Date Ever. It’s a long story — and sorry to say, relaying its details is more entertaining than watching the fetching Meghann Fahy go through her own in Drop.
The Blumhouse production deservedly gives Fahy, a breakout star from season 2 of HBO’s The White Lotus, her first turn leading a motion picture. As Violet, she’s a single mom, widow and domestic-abuse survivor all in one, getting “back out there” for her first date in years. The lucky guy — or is he? — is mustachioed photographer Henry (Brandon Sklenar, Emily the Criminal), who joins her for dinner at a posh restaurant atop a skyscraper in downtown Chicago.
Before the two can so much as exchange “hello”s, Violet receives ominous memes on her smartphone, AirDrop-style. Then the texts roll in, ordering her to conduct a series of tasks, lest harm come to her 5-year-old son and her babysitting sister (Violett Beane, Blumhouse’s Truth or Dare) held hostage back home. The unknown sender’s demands build to an ultimatum: Kill Henry, right there at the table.
Happy Death Day helmer Christopher Landon keeps things thrifty by setting 90% of the movie in the restaurant. When it comes to stirring up suspense in a single place, however, perhaps he should’ve sent the script back to the kitchen for more time in the oven. Although not a bad film, Drop reveals itself as rather repetitive, constantly generating progressively strained excuses to get Fahy or Sklenar to vacate their chairs so the plot can move forward.
Trouble is, Drop doesn’t move quickly until its tail end. And for this type of thriller, it’s not twisty enough. Landon plants red herrings, but you can tell their color simply by their placement in the running time. To Fahy’s credit, she rises to the challenge of selling the concept’s preposterousness. —Rod Lott
