Under the Bridge Review
In November 1997, a 14-year-old girl named Reena Virk went to a party and never returned home. The stories of young girls going missing is unfortunately not a new notion, but what Hulu’s Under the Bridge 8-episode limited series attempts to do in the premiere episodes, which dropped on the streaming service on April 17, is show all the angles of how such an occurrence happens in the first place and how cases like these are often afterthoughts.
Based on Rebecca Godfrey’s 2005 Under the Bridge novel, the series, adapted by Quinn Shephard, stars Riley Keough as writer Rebecca Godfrey, Lily Gladstone as ambitious police officer Cam Bentland, and Vritika Gupta as the once sweet turned rebellious teen Reena Virk. It is to be noted that while Under the Bridge is based on a true story, there are elements in the show that have been invented and fictionalized for dramatic purposes as well as some of the characters being real people from the case and others amalgamations. “Looking Glass” and “The John Gotti of Seven Oaks” were the first episodes to premiere and laid a slow paced but tension high framework of what the rest of the season will entail.
Viewers are introduced to the three leading ladies who will show the story from different perspectives. Rebecca (Keough) has traveled from New York to her hometown of Victoria, BC to write a book about the “misunderstood” young girls in the area. Reena (Gupta) is desperately trying to fit in with a group of crude foster girls; Kelly Ellard (played by Izzy G), Dusty Pace (played by Aiyana Goodfellow) and mean girl leader Josephine Bell (played by Chloe Guidry). And finally, Cam (Gladstone) has the ambition to be transferred to be bigger police department in a new city and is a big case away from making that happen.
There’s an interesting comment Rebecca says during the opening moments of the first episode. “Young girls in Victoria were supposed to be the ones we were supposed to protect, not be protected from.” That lays the breadcrumbs of the horrific events to come. We know something terrible has happened to Reena and while the first two episodes hint at what happens, viewers still don’t know the full story.
Emmy award nominee Keough and Academy award nominee Gladstone have a chemistry that’s palpable from the moment they share the screen together which is captivating to watch, but the younger cast members should also be praised for their performances. Chloe Guidry is easily a dislikeable character and plays the role of Josephine so believably to how bullies menace their victims. Aiyana Goodfellow as Dusty also had a standout moment in the second episode, and I can’t wait to see where her range goes with hopefully more screen time.
Archie Panjabi as Suman Virk, Reena’s mom, also had a beautifully tragic scene praying for her daughter with the juxtaposition of police searching for her body in the gorge. It was a poignant and brilliant cinematic scene. Matt Craven, Javon ‘Wanna’ Walton, Ezra Faroque Khan, and Anoop Desai are also key characters in the series that appeared in the premiere episodes and will fuel the story moving forward.
Under the Bridge does falter in having weekly releases. I know the subject matter is going to get heavier as we discover exactly what happened to Reena and taking mental breaks would be wise, but breaking the show down in weekly drops takes you out of the story in a way that will make you forget to want to tune back in.
Overall, Under the Bridge will have you intrigued enough to press play on watching this true crime story unfold but I think it’s best to pause it until all 8 episodes are released to return.
New episodes of Under the Bridge air every Wednesday through May 29 on Hulu.
_
Amber Dover is a multimedia journalist with over a decade writing about pop culture. Cat mom with a deep love of horror, you can follow Amber at @Glambergirlblog on Instagram and X.