Echo Valley is a suspenseful, emotional look at a mother and daughter relationship. When the drug addict daughter arrives home in bloody clothes, how much will the mother do to protect her child? There are some spoilers ahead.

Echo Valley doesn’t answer that question. An ambiguous ending leaves the question up to the viewer – will mom continue enable the addiction, or is she finished with it?

Julianne Moore as Kate carries the film on her very able shoulders. Sydney Sweeney as her daughter Claire only shows up when she’s in trouble.

Kate is grieving the loss of her wife just months before. She has a horse ranch but is going broke. She cut back on giving riding lessons, needs thousands to fix the barn roof, and is in a state of depression over her life. She has to ask her ex-husband (Kyle MacLachlan) for money for the roof and they argue about their daughter.

Claire shows up with a story about a fight with her boyfriend (Edmund Donovan) that evolves into a plea for money.

When the spooky and evil Jackie (Domhnall Gleeson) shows up demanding money he says Claire and her boyfriend owe him, Kate pays it. She thinks all Claire’s problems are solved.

They are not.

Later it’s more than money she needs. Claire arrives home with a dead body in the back of her car, wrapped up neatly like a mummy. She says it’s her boyfriend and spins a tale about how his death was an accident. Kate dumps the body in a nearby lake.

We meet Kate’s good friend Les (Fiona Shaw) who learns what’s been going on with Claire and the demanding Jackie. They talk it through while drinking wine.

Jackie shows back up. He knows about the body in the lake and he wants Kate’s whole farm!

Kate realizes she’s been betrayed by Claire. She starts to think logically about her situation with Jackie. Kate goes to visit Les and her wife for a couple of nights to clear her head and figure things out. They share some drinks and some ideas and Les offers to be there to help at any time.

Back at home, Kate offers to burn the barn down for the insurance money and give it to Jackie. A twist in this part of the story makes you realize that when you start messing with a doesn’t give a damn older woman you are in for a surprise. I loved this part of the story and the way things worked out with Jackie.

Less clear was the mother/daughter relationship at the ending. Claire shows back up on her mother’s doorstep. The two look at each other and the screen goes dark. The end.

Does Kate let Claire in or does she shut her out? The film doesn’t answer that question and I think every viewer will have an opinion about what could or should happen next. Kate’s been to hell and back for her kid. She barely survived it. I’d like to think that Kate is strong enough now to resist her daughter’s manipulations, but we really don’t know.

This was a very physically and emotionally demanding role for Julianne Moore. She was 100% at all of it. Credit also goes to Sydney Sweeney for being extra good as the terrible child.

There were some questionable moments in the plot, but I thought the treatment of the LGBTQ relationships in the story was interesting. Kate had a wife, her friend Les had a wife. But their sexuality wasn’t what it was about. There was no gratuitous sex announcing, “Look, lesbians,” there were just ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances.

Echo Valley is streaming now on Apple TV.