Revue 'Drop': a killer spam meghann fahy during a date

“Drop”, the last Slasher Sitcom-Y of director Christopher Landon (“Joy of happy death,“” “Weird”) is an too zealous techno-thriller about a blind date that becomes deadly for dessert. Purple (Meghann Fahy), a single mother and a survivor of domestic violence, nervously meets her online match, Henry (Brandon Sklenar), in a high-end restaurant in Chicago above a skyscraper. Her stress multiplies when an unknown foreigner harasss her with secret air messages, anonymous texts that can only be sent in a range of 50 feet. Someone nearby sends a serious threat to Violet: flirt with Henry or kill their son.

The configuration contained is intelligent in an Alfred Hitchcock-Meet-Chatpt way. The plot is silly and the highest point is both too fast, too slow and too ridiculous. Really, there are too many things on the menu. The script of Jillian Jacobs and Chris Roach is a romantic comedy, a sending of gastronomy and an objective in abusive relationships. It also serves a lot of red herring.

Things open badly with a scene of purple being beaten by his ex, Blake (Michael Shea). The way the physical assault is turned is just horrible and miserable. A kicks resonate through the theater. Later, Violet is projected on a table and the camera is delivered with it, deraid towards the ground. There is an idea here on resilience. Above all, it is a sour note.

In short, “Drop” also plays as a television drama, because he establishes the purple career as a virtual therapist and presents his son, Toby (Jacob Robinson, an Irish star of 6 years from Tiktok), and his original sister Jen (Violett Beane), who will offer advice from Wardrobe and some necessary. Jen puts purple in a combination of red velvet tuxedo of the dynamite which will send fashionistas rushing from the film and in the shopping center.

The tone changes again when Violet arrives at the palace, the aptly named restaurant where most of the action takes place. (For my money, everything should have been established here – Each scene that is not a groan.) Once the tip of the purple feet through the disorienting entrance to the palace, it discovers an adult sprinkled oasis which is chic and good taste and yet in a way without personality. Congratulations to the production designer Susie Cullen for having nailed a decor that I can only describe as a mixology theme park.

We will know the many corners of the palace while the bad event of purple takes place, roughly in real time. There is the bathroom where she creases to send the killer to Henry's sight furiously, the walls in Latte who lead her like a cage, the living room where the bartender (Gabrielle Ryan Spring) pours liquid courage, and the piano where a drunk and odious musician (Ed Weeks) tinks the ivors to attract her attention. “”Baby Shark, ' “She asks, hoping for him to leave her alone.

The best scenes, however, take place at the dinner table where Henry wonders why she can meet their meeting. The talkative server (Jeffery Self, hilarious) mat about the confit ginger in duck salad while purple looks helpless the safety images of a masked man in his house. Honestly, I barely given a caramelized fig to the fact that We Toby will be held hostage. I just appreciated the date, in particular the agitation of the empathetic face of Fahy who is misinterpreted as a romantic despair.

With her glassy blue eyes and her red red nose, Fahy, charming in her first main role, is so vibrato with the stress that it took a beat to recognize her from her performance in small groups in “White Lotus” like the rich woman of the second season which prefers to do shopping in therapy. Here, his very character East A therapist, not that it is ever part of the script.

Like most people these days, Violet and Henry claim to be ambivalent about modern technology, even if a dating application has brought them together. “Drop” is a great advertisement to leave your smartphone at home. Whether in the hand of purple or by buzzing on the table, he sabotes his ability to converse; It is an exaggeration of how a tool intended to connect people Calire. Even when Violet and Henry connect, they often talk about things they have seen on their phones. (Seriously lit erotic photos, for one.) They are stuck in a simulacrum of intimacy.

The wicked in technology is sitting in a place close enough to see everything Violet does. In addition, there are digital eyes everywhere. Fortunately, we don't spend as much time watching her phone. Harassing messages are slapped on the screen in large ridiculous lettering – “Your phone is cloned”, “Your son will die”, plus a reference to Billy Joel.

So far, I have not yet seen a film understand how to join the dull activity to watch a little black rectangle in something worthy of the screen. Landon's approach looks a little too much like a display panel or a meme, but I think it is on the right track to try something expressionist that dates back to silent aesthetics. If you think it looks cool, you should immediately watch FW Monnau “Sunrise: a song of two humans”, “ A 1927 count on another killer meeting where the text on the screen “couldn't it drown?” sinks into a troubled lake.

An aggravating visual ICT is that most male characters are photocopies of each other, a stack of beautiful men with brown sand bous. I cannot be the only person who initially confused Henry and Blake as the same guy and assumed that the brutal opening flash is actually a flash-form. For more clarity, could one of them have shaved?

Maybe – maybe – The wrong direction is on purpose. I am doubtful. In another pivotal moment, purple scribbles a message that seems to be a big problem according to the tense and hammering score. But even in close -up, I could not understand what he was reading.

Otherwise, the cinematography is fantastic with dramatic lighting and fun frills: magic candles idle on a birthday cake, aerial photos of Panna Cotta, a sequence of introductory credits in which the glasses of wine and whiskey explode in the air. There are scenes that highlight our tracks by taking off the rest of the restaurant in the dark, and a hollow where everything except purple disappears in the darkness of ink while the camera draws directly like a frightened calmar. Maybe it heard the self-serving server doing coconut calamari. It is more likely that this intermediate thriller just needs a decorative garnish.