Drop Starring Meghann Fahy Has 84% on Rotten Tomatoes, but Is It Really Worth-Watching?

Christopher Landon's Drop, a fast-paced thriller about a disastrous first date, is out now. Meghann Fahy, star of the second season of The White Lotus, plays the lead role.

What Is Drop About?

Violet is going on her first date in years. She met Henry through an app and spent several months texting him without meeting in person.

Violet's caution is justified; she survived domestic violence in the past and now helps other women cope with its consequences. Violet has a young son, Toby, whom she leaves with her younger sister.

The date is set to take place at a luxurious restaurant on the top floor of a Chicago skyscraper. Violet arrives a little earlier than Henry and has time to survey the area, chat with the staff, and observe the other guests.

Henry turns out to be the man of her dreams, but dinner does not go according to plan from the start. Violet starts receiving threatening messages on her phone. The virtual interlocutor threatens to kill her son if she refuses to do what she is asked.

Drop Is an Agatha Christie-like Mystery Movie

The main source of threat in the film is the DigiDrop technology. It enables the transfer of files from one phone to another, but only from nearby devices.

This plot-defining detail is important: Violet knows for sure that the person sending her creepy messages is in the same restaurant. But who is he?

It is a mystery in the spirit of Agatha Christie. It could be anyone: an overly expressive waiter, a polite barmaid, an unfriendly hostess, or even Henry himself. What if he's not who he claims to be?

Drop Was Inspired by the Best Thrillers of the Last Century

Although the film's characters deal with new technologies, Landon's cinematic solutions are not innovative. However, this is not a drawback since he borrows from the best.

First is Alfred Hitchcock – all filmmakers who need to maintain the unity of time, place, and action in a murder story invariably turn to his films Rope and Rear Window.

Second is Red Eye, the most underrated film by Wes Craven. It's a thriller about a flight in which a passenger, played by Rachel McAdams, is threatened by a terrorist.

Drop Will Keep You on the Edge of Your Seat Until the Very Last Minute

Drop doesn't try to outdo its predecessors. However, it does draw the viewer into a surefire game of cat and mouse, making you worry about the victim as if he were a close relative.

Violet's two goals – not to ruin the date and to figure out the blackmailer – are clearly at odds with each other. The same thing happens with the imagery: calm scenes shot with a static camera suddenly give way to sharp alternations of angles and dynamic shots of people running through restaurant corridors. It's a fairly simple trick, but it works.

Even when the next plot twist seems familiar, the anxiety for the character does not disappear.