1 week Ago By Stephen Schaefer
You could make a film about terrible blind dates, two people so mismatched they can barely get through drinks and dinner. But that wouldn’t be “Drop,” a thriller opening nationally Friday whose poster rightly cautions: “Trust No One.” For Meghann Fahy’s Violet, a widowed mother tentatively venturing into the dating pool after a traumatic incident years earlier, her “Drop” date night becomes something to not just remember but survive.
Violet no sooner meets Henry (Brandon Sklenar), her seemingly ideal online guy, at a swanky, high-rise restaurant for dinner than her phone rings – and her night of terror begins. For Violet is being watched and ordered to do terrible things. To enforce compliance her phantom reveals on her phone how her home security is compromised: A masked killer’s inside her house, ready to murder Jen, her baby-sitting younger sister, and Toby, her 6-year-old son if she doesn’t obey.
“The script was so unbelievably compelling, a real page turner,” Fahy, 35 and best known for “The White Lotus” season in Italy, said in a phone interview. “However, from a character perspective, Violet is particularly well-suited to be in a situation like this. Because she’s developed so many tools to be able to fake it.
“She had to do that in her previous, obviously abusive relationship. We see the horrible side effects of that at the beginning. “That uniquely makes her good at pulling this particular thing off,” where she must keep her demanding tormentor pacified while plotting an escape.
“Drop” may be a superlative popcorn thriller but Fahy sees something serious being said. “A huge part of the film is putting the way that we interact with strangers under a microscope. One of the most profound moments for me is at the beginning where Violet starts looking around the restaurant to see who it might be.
And she sees everyone is on their phone! “It’s at that moment she realizes it could be any one of these people. And that is very true to our experience right now as humans. Any restaurant you walk into, any room, really, if you look around, you’re going to see a lot of that.
” Filming in Ireland meant the restaurant and bar were specifically built for the cameras. “A very physical piece,” Fahy noted, “and also my first time doing stunts. “We did rehearse quite a bit.
Our incredible stunt team made it look so easy. And it’s really not. Not even the simplest things, like stabbing someone.
“You think you would know what the physicality of that feels like or looks like. Because we’ve seen enough films where we’ve seen that. “So I was really surprised by how selling that movement was a lot trickier than it seemed.
” “Drop” opens in theaters Friday.
