Under the bridge

Under the bridge

Hulu, April 16, 2024

April 17, 2024
By Lily Moayeri
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The glamor of the 90s continues with Under the bridge, an eight-part limited series based on the late Rebecca Godfrey's 2009 true-crime book of the same name, about Reena Virk, a 14-year-old Indian-Canadian who went to a party and never came home, only to find herself. dead over a week later. (Rina's father wrote his own book about the devastating experience with his daughter, Reena: A Father's Story.) The series premieres with two episodes and then drops one episode a week.

Under the bridge has notable stars in two of its main characters: Riley Keough (also an executive producer) who plays Godfrey and Lily Gladstone, Rebecca's childhood friend Cam Bentland, who is an officer in the town's police force. Set in 1997, Rebecca returns to her hometown of Greater Victoria, Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada to write a book about the city's girls and their treatment of each other.

This turns out to be perfect timing for Rebecca. Reena (Vritika Gupta) is an Indian woman whose family are faithful Jehovah's Witnesses. He hangs out at a group home, Seven Oaks, where he lived for a time. Reena still prefers being part of the crowd at Seven Oaks to being watched at home. Her friends at Seven Oaks are ruled by Josephine “Gotti” Bell (Chloe Guidry), a menacing gangster girl who oscillates between her fascination with John Gotti and Biggie Smalls. Her gangster delusions would be comical if they weren't so dangerous as Jo's charms run hot and cold in unexpected turns. Rina leaves her family dinner to join Jo and the rest of the girls at a party where she has been hanging out. Rina runs away but is caught and brutalized. We don't see what happens next, except that he disappears.

Rebecca shows up at Seven Oaks the next day and quickly tries to “get down” with the girls, who are as horrible as Regina George's mom trying to befriend her daughter and her gang at Bad Girls. Rebecca claims she had a boyfriend who lived in the group home when they were growing up – who we later learn is Cam. Even so, aren't there some regulations that don't allow random people to walk into a group home and smoke cigarettes with underage girls behind closed doors? Why is there no one in charge here?

For her part, Cam isn't terribly helpful when Reena's family comes to the police station for help. But he ends up rallying the troops, maybe out of suspicion, maybe out of sympathy, or maybe because he's gunning for a promotion in Vancouver. The police pull the Seven Oaks girls in for questioning. After Jo's mother refuses to show up for her questioning, Rebecca's “I'm down” game pays off. Rebecca is called out of her dirty bath water where she sinks below the surface and onto the phone where Jo is on the line, asking her to come to the station.

The most compelling scene – no pun intended – is when Joe and Rebecca look at each other through the glass of a room in the police station. This is the first of Jo's deadpan looks that are a recurring element of his Under the bridge. This leads into the second episode, which begins with a flashback to eight months earlier and how stifling Reena's family's religious beliefs are to her. There is an eeriness, particularly to her mother's extreme devotion, which is driven by the score.

Rina is bullied mercilessly at school. When she first meets Jo, it's at the drugstore where Jo comes to her rescue with some advice on safety razors. This cements their friendship and Jo's hero worship begins. It was also revealed why Jo is at Seven Oaks: her mother chose her boyfriend over her daughter.

It's Jo's manipulative, albeit transparent, control games at the core Under the bridge. Her tough exterior hides her fragility, but she also bruises anyone who gets too close, including Rebecca, who develops an inappropriately intimate relationship with someone so much younger than her. Anything for a story, but this goes too far when Rebecca goes to a party with Jo, under minimal pressure, and gets out of her head around a bunch of teenagers. Meanwhile, there is an angry sexual energy between Rebecca and Cam, the source of which will no doubt be revealed in future episodes, but which is nevertheless irrelevant and extraneous to the main story. This isn't the only unrelated, fabricated side story Under the bridge, which would benefit from some streamlining. The main story is engrossing enough without these random and trivial asides.

The fact that Under the bridge it's a true story that makes it a scary watch. Not only Rina's abuse at the hands of her classmates and enemies, but also her own behavior towards her parents, which is perhaps the most heartbreaking of all. Hard to see, impossible to look away.

Author Rating: 7/10