“On its face, this story is the opposite of a fairy tale.”
The opening words of Under the Bridge rapidly turn out to be an understatement. Based on a crime that rocked Canada – which was turned into a best-selling book by journalist Rebecca Godfrey (we’ll meet her soon enough) – it’s a car-crash compelling look at a community shaken by a shocking crime, written by someone who was there, and who became part of the story herself.
Rebecca (Riley Keough). Credit: Darko Sikman / Hulu
It's November 1997, and journalist Rebecca (Riley Keough) is back in Vancouver Island in British Columbia after a decade away. She’s planning to write a book on troubled teenage girls, having some experience in that area herself. What she finds quickly goes far beyond her own dark past; as the voice-over tells us, “young girls in Victoria were the ones we were supposed to protect, not be protected from”
Fourteen-year-old Reena (Vritika Gupta) had more than her share of issues. Socially awkward (high school gym class was not her time to shine) and eager to rebel against her Jehovah’s Witness parents, she found herself drawn into the orbit of a group of the island’s more mature girls. Well, “mature” meaning they smoked, drank, and listened to a lot of hip-hop (Biggie Smalls being a favourite).
In flashbacks, we see the life of missing fourteen-year-old Reena (Vritika Gupta). Credit: Bettina Strauss / Hulu
Their leader, Josephine (Chloe Guidry), called them the CMC, short for Crip Mafia Cartel. Along with sidekick Kelly (Izzy G.) and sometime punching bag Dusty (Aiyana Goodfellow), they seemed to provide an escape for Reena – until they turn on her. One thing leads to another; when she doesn’t come home, her father Manjit (Ezra Faroque Khan) reports her missing. (Emmy winner Archie Punjabi plays Reena’s mother, Suman).
The local police aren’t overly concerned (they later refer to the CMC girls as “bic girls” – like the lighter, they’re disposable). With Reena’s prior history of running away, the search for her is half-hearted at first. Only officer Cam Bentland (Lily Gladstone) takes it seriously. When Reena’s underwear is found in a nearby waterway, it seems like she was right.
Cam Bentland (Lily Gladstone) is one of the few to take the disappearance seriously. Credit: Bettina Strauss / Hulu
Nothing about this crime is clear-cut, and this story is only getting started. Well, stories, plural: Under the Bridge weaves a number of plotlines through its eight episodes, flashing back to the months before Reena’s disappearance to show her growing relationship with the CMC crew, then going back further to look at her parents’ arrival on the island and how they were outsiders from the start. And all the while the investigation is moving forward, eventually ending up in a trial that doesn’t follow the usual courtroom cliches.
Then there’s Rebecca, who finds herself in the middle of things from her very first meeting with Josephine. Rebecca sees the teen as her ticket into the world she wants to write about, and while her approach – which largely seems to involve having no real boundaries and immediately plunging herself into the teen’s lives – soon has Josephine opening up, it’s pretty clear that she and the rest of the gang are as much using Rebecca as she’s using them. The only difference is, the teens might be covering up a murder.
Dusty (Aiyana Goodfellow) and Josephine (Chloe Guidry). Credit: Darko Sikman / Hulu
One of the big strengths of this series is that the teenagers aren’t explained away or turned into caricatures of youth gone wild. They’re fickle, abusive, fragile and prone to lashing out, but while there’s the occasional hint as to why they’ve gone bad – absent parents, pop culture, a society that’s written them off – for the most part they’re presented simply as is. Thanks to a collection of first-rate performances, they’re always convincing simply as people.
Likewise, the performance from Keough is constantly compelling. As the story progresses, Rebecca increasingly makes bad decisions of her own; it seems a big part of her return is her trying to deal with a past that’s kept her off balance for a decade or more. And Cam, who at first she keeps at a distance, is a central part of that past.
Rebecca (Riley Keough) and Cam (Lily Gladstone) in 'Under The Bridge'. Credit: Darko Sikman / Hulu
Cam is Native American, but her adoptive family – including her father (Matt Craven), who’s also the local chief of police – are white. Their racism is casual but intentional, yet another reminder of the many ways the island community can find to shut someone out. Gladstone (best known for her role in Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon) does a great job here as a sobering force, the grounded counterpart to Rebecca’s turbulent approach.
She also shares Rebecca’s pain of a youth shattered by loss, but on this island it seems almost everyone has a haunted past. The struggle to fit in and the pain of being cast out occurs time and again – and each time it points back to Reena, the girl at the centre of it all. As the story moves forward, flashbacks ensure she remains the focus, and her scenes – trying to make friends but only finding users, trying to find a place in a society that doesn’t care – only become more raw.
In a world where healing seems out of reach, justice will have to do.
Under the Bridge is streaming at SBS On Demand.
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