The basic constellation of this true crime series has been seen many times before: a fourteen-year-old goes to a party and never returns home. The action takes us to 1997, to Victoria on the southern tip of Vancouver Island, with Seattle within reach. The young people there are currently listening to Notorious BIG and Nirvana with euphoria, smoking “weed” conspiratorially and imagining that they would be treated more respectfully if they behaved like gangsters. The girls who have been forgotten by their families take particularly great liberties in the “Seven Oaks” youth home.
The crime scene shifts several times over the course of the series, but at the center of the covered-up crime on the remote island is a large bridge whose massive darkness is perfect for giving birth to monsters – baser instincts that the young Indian woman Reena (Vritika Gupta), who would love to be one of the cool ones, falls victim.
The events are narrated and occasionally commented on by the journalist Rebecca Godfrey (Riley Keough), who has returned to her old homeland and is writing a book about “Victoria Girls” and, as it turns out, also dealing with the early death of her brother. The crime under the bridge occurs shortly after their arrival. During her research, she soon runs into conflicts with her childhood friend Cam Betland (Lily Gladstone), who is investigating for the police.
A certain existential disgust
What’s great about this series, based on the non-fiction book “Under the Bridge” by the actual Rebecca Godfrey, who died two years ago, is how casually complicated relationships appear in the minimalist game. After just a few shots, the viewer already senses that Rebecca and Cam have more in common than an old friendship. It looks like unfulfilled love, which is what Elvis’ granddaughter Riley Keough and Lily Gladstone, who made it big in the Scorsese western “Killers of the Flower Moon” (Golden Globe, Oscar nomination), indicate in uncertain looks and gestures.
The acting performance of the young actors is also impressive. Of all things, Reena’s pure, naive love of life predestines her to be the sacrificial lamb that the assertive Josephine (Chloe Guidry) and the ice-cold Kelly (Izzy G.), who basically envy her, have been waiting for.
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The highlights of the series are the no-nonsense looks that Lily Gladstone as police officer Cam takes on the action. Human nature looks at it through interrogations and when watching evidentiary videos with slightly squinted eyes, as if through a microscope, although it does not deny a certain existential disgust. She says quietly in her clear voice: “That can’t be right.” She has indigenous roots, her disillusioned look and the way she holds the whiskey glass are reminiscent of a hard-boiled sheriff, including the physicality of the ambitious one The hobby boxer that she is in the film fits – a characteristic that she shares with Kali Reis as police officer Evangeline Navarro in the latest season of the HBO series “True Detective”.
Series doesn’t get lost in moral relativism
To reveal the deeper motives behind Reena’s murder, the series includes numerous flashbacks. It is bitter that Reena’s Indian ancestors basically only became Jehovah’s Witnesses because they wanted to arm themselves against racist attacks. The granddaughter, who tries to escape the strict family corset, then falls victim to this adjustment. A tragedy – everyday racism cannot be escaped.
For different reasons, Cam and Rebecca are closer to the young violent criminals than they would like. Cam, who discovers her shocking adoption story in the course of the plot, was once housed in the “Seven Oaks” youth home. The self-destructive Rebecca feels drawn to the suspicious young people and especially to Warren Glowatski (convincingly portrayed by Javon Walton) because as a teenager she was not entirely innocent in her brother’s death.
But the series doesn’t lose itself in moral relativism, that’s what makes it so true and good. While Rebecca tries to excuse the actions of the “Victoria girls” (and boys) with “a mistake,” Cam, disgusted by a world gone wrong, insists on the difference between good and evil. She quits the police force because she can no longer tolerate the xenophobia around her. It’s a nice punch line in this true crime series: the police officer is tired of voyeurism in the face of crime, and she’s lost as a permanent investigator for streaming television.
“Under the Bridge” is streaming on Disney+ via Star.
