3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Drop

2025, Christopher Landon (Happy Death Day) -- download/Amazon

Not so long ago, I got my first iPhone for work. We had been a Blackberry shop, and then an Android shop, but never approved iPhones. Then a new CEO came in, and we suddenly had iPhones. I was assigned one, but hadn't used one since they first came out. I did not know about "drops" (more specifically, on iOS, AirDrops), or the ability to send files, wirelessly of course, from one iPhone to another, within a short distance. One afternoon, while sitting on the train, someone kept on sending them to me. I denied, assuming it was a mistake, but they were persistent. I eventually turned off the functionality, once I had a moment to Google it, but a bit of further research said that it was probably teenagers who were just fucking with whatever stranger's iPhone was within distance. 

But that's it, that's my whole exposure to "drops". They are not really in the pop culture representation of mobile technology; well not widely. I know Android has a similar feature, which was originally sold as a feature to share photos and contact info, but its not a Big Thing in movies or TV. This movie implies pretty much the same experience as I had, that you would not know the feature is on, and someone could, anonymously send you messages, memes, whatever. I mean, the movie has a toss-away line "we cloned your phone" but she doesn't seem surprised she is getting these messages, so in her world, its a Thing.

She is Violet (Meghann Fahy, The White Lotus), a therapist on her first date since she got away from her abusive husband. She is meeting Henry (Brandon Sklenar, It Ends with Us) at a ultra fancy resto, while her little sister baby-sits her son Toby. The night starts with a Random Stranger mistaking her for his blind date, and gets weirder from there. She connects with a few people, including a bartender and someone she bumps into, literally. The movie is just setting the playing field, giving us a few players who will become part of the dance to come.

Her date is Henry, a nice, handsome guy she met on an app. They have the typical "not really familiar with these apps" connection between two actually lovely people which is instantly interrupted by a message sent to her. In most movies this would be an anonymous TXT message, but these "drops" are displayed more like threatening memes. At first, they are innocuous, just weird, allowing the two to chat about the distance restriction on drops. This sets the conceit of the movie -- that her adversary has to be within the confines of the resto. Once the "dropper" knows he has her attention, the true motive comes out -- they are in her home and are holding her family hostage unless she does exactly what they want.

Cat & Mouse. She needs to protect her family, and needs to find out who is doing this to her, but she also needs to keep off her adversary's radar. There are in-restaurant cameras, her phone is cloned and who knows who else in the resto is in on it. Oh, and they want Henry's camera sabotaged and him dead. Yeah, Violet's not into that.

Landon obviously has a fondness for classic mystery-thrillers as he uses a lot of visual techniques to capture the viewer's focus, for example, spot lighting a particular character she is suspicious of, by freeze-framing them in shadows. It adds a little "fun" to a very tense situation, and I have to admit, with my current life being almost over-shadowed by constant anxiety from many different simultaneous directions, I had to turn off the movie a few times. If that is happening to me, then I see Landon as successful in displaying Violet's anxieties. 

Unfortunately, the movie eventually drops the coy game between the players and devolves into beat-the-clock violence. I know these things always have to come to a head, but I do prefer when a movie uses the "outsmart the villain" trope for these kinds of movies, instead of a "oh fuck, now I just have to KILL them for threatening my family." That said, as I already know from Happy Death Day I do like the way Landon plays games, the movie was more than competent (competence is a weird bar to hold movies up against) and I guess, after looking back at my write-ups of all the other Landon movies I have watched, I do like him as a working-man of movie making, not doing anything super exciting (beyond HDD) but always putting out something solid.