So, How Was the Date?

Meghann Fahy broke out on the small screen in two of the buzziest TV shows of recent years, the second season of The White Lotus (her performance was Emmy-nominated) and The Perfect Couple.

Now, she’s making the leap to the big screen in Drop, a faux-Hitchcockian thriller that casts her as a woman on the most stressful of first dates. Everyone from Julia Roberts (Sleeping with the Enemy) to Rachel McAdams (Red Eye) to Jennifer Lopez (Enough) has starred in a similar kind of film, so you might say this type of role is a rite of passage for young actresses looking to expand their career prospects.

In Drop, Fahy plays Violet, a widowed mother and therapist to traumatized women, who is reluctantly and cautiously getting back into the dating scene after the death of her abusive husband. Following what was apparently a prolonged online courtship, she meets Henry (Brandon Sklenar, who costarred with Blake Lively in It Ends with Us, and is cast yet again in a movie where domestic abuse figures prominently) at a swanky restaurant located in a downtown Chicago high-rise, called Palate. Kudos to Susie Cullen, known for her work on Abigail, who designed what may be the most gorgeous on-screen restaurant since Hawthorne, Ralph Fiennes’ pretentious spot in The Menu.

Henry appears to be everything Violet’s ex isn’t: charming, handsome, and, most importantly, nice. Maybe this will be a good date, after all?

Soon after arriving at the restaurant, though, Violet starts receiving “drop” messages from an anonymous sender. Initially, she ignores them, but before long, she learns that whoever is sending her these messages isn’t just watching her on the date, he also has a masked accomplice in her home, where Violet’s sister is babysitting for her son. If Violet doesn’t do exactly what her tormentor tells her to do, this hitman is going to kill Violet’s son and sister. And what’s the main item on the to-do list? Kill Henry.

Unlike standard text messages, drops can only be sent by someone within a small radius, so whoever is doing it must be in the restaurant, too. Cue the paranoia and the red herrings about who Violet’s tormentor is. Is it the mysterious guy who’s sitting by himself and always seems to be on his phone? The goofy waiter, who informs his patrons that he’s an improv-comedy student at Second City? The insufferable pianist? The supportive bartender? Could be any of them, or somebody else entirely. Meanwhile, Henry is either the most patient, understanding guy in Chicago … or maybe it’s all an act and the messages are coming from him somehow? (No spoilers from me.)

Director Christopher Landon (Happy Death Day, Freaky) keeps audiences guessing for much of this well-paced film, lingering on Fahy’s very attractive face as she tries to figure out why she’s been singled out and how she can save her boy, her sister, and her date from meeting their demise. There are some requisite jump scares, some not-so-subtle foreshadowing, and plenty of misdirection, but all that’s to be expected in a film of this genre.

Violet clearly has developed a toughness after her nightmare marriage, and Fahy is very good in the role, conveying real emotion beyond just fear. She’s definitely easy to watch — which helps the film be more tolerable than it probably should be. It’s fun to watch Fahy as her character tries to get out of the hellish predicament she’s in.

Once the big reveal happens, though, all bets are off. It’s then that Drop goes completely off the rails in somewhat laughable fashion. If you’ve seen the trailer, you know that at some point in the film, Violet goes flying out a window and is dangling high above Chicago. How she gets rescued is far-fetched, and it only gets more ridiculous from there.

But who cares, right? Drop doesn’t aspire to be great cinema, just 100 minutes of entertainment. On that level, it mostly succeeds. Yes, it’s silly. Yes, there are aspects of it that you’ve seen before. But Drop is the kind of film you can watch — in a theater or at home — and not feel regret about having spent the time doing so.

Now that Fahy has a movie like this under her belt, hopefully she’ll be able to find better projects in the future, and will have a successful big-screen career just like Roberts, McAdams, and Lopez all have. I look forward to watching those films, too.

For now, I’m giving Drop a B–.