The film, which also includes fictional elements, portrays the children of an isolated village "El Echo", in the Mexican highlands.

[6] El Echo, a remote village in Puebla, the Mexican highlands, where conditions change drastically between seasons, the children tend to the sheep and take care of their elders.

Concluding, he said, "At the close, a hot white slice of lightning breaks the screen, signaling relief after a lengthy drought, but hardly an idealized long-term solution to the greater generational problems facing El Eco.

"[16] Wendy Ide for ScreenDaily wrote in review that the film is "an intimate, immersive portrait of a way of life – its rhythms, hardships and its communal joys – told through the eyes of the young people who rarely question it.

"[17] Vladan Petkovic writing for Cineuropa stated, "True to its title, The Echo is about the background, about leftovers, and things left unsaid and never done.