Hulu’s “Under the Bridge”: A True Crime Drama Unfolds

TFD – Dive into the unsettling world of true-crime drama with Hulu’s “Under the Bridge,” a series that delves into the tragic events surrounding Rebecca Godfrey’s gripping novel. Uncover the mysteries, betrayal, and haunting secrets that unfold against the backdrop of a teenage tragedy in Victoria, Canada. Premiering on April 17, this series promises a chilling narrative that will keep you on the edge of your seat.

“Under the Bridge,” though based on a bleak true-crime tale, mishandles the adaptation of the book in a number of ways, starting with the way it incorporates Rebecca Godfrey, the author, into the narrative. This bridge into the familiar waters of troubled teens thus proves most notable as Lily Gladstone’s follow-up to “Killers of the Flower Moon,” albeit in a rather drab role as the local cop investigating the case.

This eight-episode Hulu series centers on 14-year-old Reena Virk (Vritika Gupta), whose intense desire to blend in with her peers is portrayed against the backdrop of her knowing that some of them were involved in her beating and eventual death. The 1997 events that rocked Victoria, Canada, were as the inspiration for Godfrey’s novel.

Similar to the contentious Netflix series “13 Reasons Why,” and even earlier, like the 1986 film “River’s Edge,” the narrative centers on the unnerving callousness of teenagers prior to the advent of social media. Every parent’s worst nightmare is brought to life by Reena’s disappearance and eventual discovery, with Archie Panjabi (“The Good Wife”) and Ezra Faroque Khan as her understandably distraught and panicked parents.

Under the Bridge,” a flashback story, makes a mistake by focusing too much on Rebecca (Riley Keough, recently from “Daisy Jones & the Six,” another streaming series), a writer visiting her hometown after suffering a tragedy there years prior. She quickly gets back in touch with Cam, the sheriff (Gladstone), with whom she has a shared past, and they carry out what amounted to a parallel real-time inquiry into what happened.

Like most of the details around Rebecca and Cam, which seem forced or merely worn out, it’s an odd and unconvincing creation. While the latter struggles with working for her dad (Matt Craven), the former almost instantly feels sympathy for people who might have been at fault.

These components serve as diversion from the key questions surrounding Reena’s circumstances, the motivations of her attackers, and the peers’ collective silence in the wake of the tragedy.

In fact, the show does much better when it focuses on the teenagers, with Chloe Guidry portraying the vicious leader of the girl gang and Javon “Wanna” Walton (“Euphoria”) playing one of the boys involved. The girl gang is mockingly referred to in police circles as “Bic girls,” a reference to the disposable nature of Victoria’s troubled youths.

The film “Under the Bridge,” which writer-producer Quinn Shephard (“Not Okay”) adapted, creates a little amount of tension around the details of Reena’s murder, but it still has some dubious structural choices. The story’s fundamental pain isn’t lessened by the shortcomings, but they do occasionally make getting through all eight episodes of this limited series feel like a bridge too far.

Hulu will debut “Under the Bridge” on April 17.