Under The Bridge review: A hard-hitting, scattered true-crime drama

Let’s get the obvious out of the way first: Under The Bridge is triggering. Hulu’s true-crime drama, which premieres April 17, is generally difficult to digest, and it’s a particularly tough watch for anyone who’s lived as a teenage girl. That’s because it acutely captures the horrors of being a frantic, lonely 14-year-old acting out of rebellion, desperate to avoid being an outcast and striving to be part of the “cool” group. The show provocatively dissects these issues through the lens of its many young protagonists, especially Reena Virk (Vritika Gupta). But it falters because that’s not the only lens through which it tells this story.

Based on Rebecca Godfrey’s 2005 book about the real case, the miniseries attempts to unravel Reena’s horrific murder in 1997 in British Columbia, Canada. Frustratingly, though, the narrative switches often, going back and forth in time, shifting quite incoherently from various kids to Rebecca (Riley Keough), an author doing research in her hometown, to Cam (Lily Gladstone), the only female cop on this small island. Under The Bridge struggles to weave everyone’s journey equally compellingly, making it sag at intervals and stifling the crucial points it wants to make.

As opposed to the book, here Rebecca is as much of a central figure as the subjects she’s writing about, with her emotional history providing insight into the place and its people. And the tweak works only ever so slightly. Another change is the addition of the fictional character Cam, whose shaky bond with Rebecca and identity crisis fuel some of the show’s intensity. Gladstone and Keough are great, but their half-baked arcs feel shoehorned into the mix.

Despite being scattershot, the eight episodes are emotionally devastating when focused on the teens. That’s when the show’s existence is immediately justified because it doesn’t feel exploitative. Much like Godfrey’s well-reported book, the Hulu drama sharply digs into the kids’ pressures, vulnerabilities, and how their callousness led them to horrific extremes. UTB empathetically sheds light on Reena and her family without sanitizing anything. It also feels vital considering how people of color get disproportionately less attention in true crime.

And, gosh, it’s a real gut punch to witness Reena’s tumultuous adolescence that ends in tragedy. The show paints a harrowing picture of her coming-of-age, which includes some strict parenting and a gnawing loneliness that drives her to make impulsive decisions. One of those is to try and badly befriend Josephine (Chloe Guidry), the nasty girl queen bee who lives in a foster home. It also means battling Jo’s ruthless, well-to-do BFF, Kelly Ellard (Izzy G), for her attention. The difference between them is, of course, that Reena is not white.

Reena is a first-generation Indian teen who becomes an easy bullying target. Most of her classmates team up to ridicule her ethnicity, looks, and weight (dubbing her “The Beast”). When she starts acting out against them to seem gangster-like to appease Jo, whose idol is John Gotti, some of them seek revenge. Specifically, six girls and one boy flagrantly beat her up during a party that ends with Reena’s death by drowning. Without depicting the actual violence, Under The Bridge excruciatingly reveals how she suffers not just that night but over several months as she strives to fit in.

Her attempts to assimilate include shedding her Indian heritage and disregarding any rules set by her parents, who converted from Hinduism to Jehovah’s Witness. Episode four, UTB’s best outing, highlights this achingly. Reena invites Jo, Kelly, and Dusty (Aiyana Goodfellow)—the other WOC in the group—home for dinner, leading to a huge fight with her friends and family. “Beautiful British Columbia” stands out because of its cultural intricacies as it also unpacks how the Virks settled in Canada. It helps that the installment was directed by Nimisha Mukerji and written by Stuti Malhotra. (Episodes helmed by Geeta Patel are excellent for the same reason). Under The Bridge emphasizes how inherent racism was a factor in Reena’s death and the delay in solving it. The commentary isn’t as astute as it could’ve been, but the effort is worthwhile.

This theme is underlined by the arc of Cam, who, in working on Reena’s case, deals with her own upbringing as an Indigenous child adopted by white parents. Her storyline feels detracting and bungled here, but at least Gladstone nails the role. Meanwhile, Archie Panjabi and Ezra Farouke Khan are forced to be one-note as Reena’s grieving parents, but they pull off Suman and Manjit Virk’s frustrations, confusion, and sorrow so well that it’s hard not to be moved.

The teen performers, including Javon Walton, who plays Warren Glowatski, are commendable. Rebecca bonds hardest with Warren for personal reasons, using his POV to explain why he hurt Reena, whom he didn’t even know. The breakout stars are Gupta (a revelation), Guidry, and Izzy G (the two of them are genuinely scary) as they take us through their characters’ ferocious yet deeply affecting girlhoods. They’re the beating hearts of Under The Bridge and help make it, a few narrative stumbles aside, a mostly gripping and devastating cautionary tale.

Under The Bridge premieres April 17 on Hulu