Sometimes, a piece of media captures a profoundly personal consciousness so viscerally that it leaves something of a gaping hole behind. It’s a force that rips through like a storm. That’s how the latest Hulu original series, Under the Bridge, slowly brewed in the wake of a real story about sectors of a community ostracized and a young Indian girl who only wanted to fit in. A story I know all too well.
Starring Lily Gladstone and Riley Keough, Under the Bridge is a retelling of the 1997 real-life murder of 14-year-old Reena Virk from Saanich, British Columbia, Canada. It’s also based on the reporting of this crime by journalist and former resident of Saanich, Rebecca Godfrey, as interpreted by Riley Keough in the series. Gladstone plays the office involved in solving the brutal murder of Reena, played by Vritika Gupta.
Under the Bridge is a painful look at the Canadian justice system and the moral grounds by which we live. Most true crime, adapted for consumption, feels cheap and exploitative. The victims of these crimes become side characters in their own stories. Thankfully, that isn’t the case for Reena Virk and her story in Under the Bridge. While opening up old wounds, the series doesn’t sensationalize Reena’s story but contextualizes it within a larger worldview. Despite the murder taking place in 1997, her story speaks to a modern world that is steadfastly refusing progress. Where immigrant families are still seen as outcasts in Western countries like Canada and the United States.
Gupta’s performance as the young Reena Virk and Archie Panjabi’s as Virk’s mother, Suman Virk, are perhaps the most crucial elements of this series. Their performances feel like authentic representations of the real people they’re portraying. Other true crime anthology series like Ryan Murphy’s American Crime Story, which covers infamous cases such as the O.J. Simpson trial and the murder of Gianni Visage, feel like parodies of the crimes. There’s no dedication to understanding the motivations and larger cultural context of these crimes but rather focus on the salacious nature of its murderers. The victims of these crimes get left in the margins.
Gladstone’s character, Cam, becomes another complex foil to discussing race within the series. Cam is the adopted child of a local cop who’s in charge of investigating Reena’s murder. Cam is also a Native woman in Canada. She also becomes a cop like her adopted father and brother. In the mixture of all of that, there’s also her background as coming from an incredibly abusive household. Cam’s character becomes almost like a self-insert for the audience to follow. Rich and complicated, Cam’s worldview shifts as she’s confronted with the reality of the Canadian justice system she chooses to uphold but can no longer fully understand within the context of her own identity. She’s seen how the system swallows these children up, especially non-white children like Dusty (Aiyana Goodfellow). The way even the cops refer to the girls at the Seven Oaks Youth Home as “BIC girls” – disposable like lighters. Because that’s what they are to the system. Broken and useless. So they act accordingly.
Under the Bridge is an exception to the true crime genre. It’s what it should be doing when reexamining true crime, unearthing the complex nature of these crimes without exploiting the violence. Reena Virk’s story is the story of many second-generation immigrants in Western countries. Of families who struggle to acclimate to a place that doesn’t want them there. It’s also a series of the many consequences that a broken and racist system can produce. It highlights the many discrepancies our modern world has in the way it treats its most vulnerable group: children. It’s a brutal portrayal of race, class, and identity that weaves a much darker tapestry. Under the Bridge, while encapsulated in time, feels relevant and timely.
Rating: 10/10
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