A nuanced look at a shocking murder
‘Under the Bridge’ portrays the complexities around the 1997 killing of Reena Virk
What TV shows are dominating the conversation, capturing the zeitgeist or are hidden gems waiting to be uncovered? We take a look ahead of your weekend watch.
Early in “Under the Bridge,” the eight-episode TV miniseries about the 1997 murder of Reena Virk, based on the book of the same name, the character of author Rebecca Godfrey says she’s writing about “the misunderstood girls of Victoria.”
I misremembered the line as “the lost girls of Victoria” until I went back and checked my notes, but “lost” seems an even more apt description.
Reena, obviously, was the most lost of all. She was just 14 when she was beaten by a group of teenagers under the Craigflower Bridge in a suburb of Victoria, B.C., then followed by two of the teens, beaten again and drowned in the Gorge Waterway.
But “Under the Bridge” is not an open-and-shut true crime series; it invites viewers to consider the ways in which the girls and one boy convicted in the attack were lost themselves, without downplaying the horror of the crime.
And it extends that complexity to Rebecca, played here by Riley Keough (“Daisy Jones & the Six”), herself a former lost girl who, having returned to her hometown from New York City, insinuates herself into the Virk case in maddening ways, sometimes seeming more sympathetic to the teens accused of attacking Reena than to Reena herself.
It’s a reminder, however, that even the most outrageous crimes can’t be seen as purely black and white, good and evil, given that they’re the product of human behaviour and that humans can be more than one thing at once.
That intricacy makes “Under the Bridge” a compelling watch. It’s about more than what happened under that bridge on the night of Nov. 14, 1997. It’s also in part about the sometimes inscrutable ways that teenage girls relate to themselves and one another.
Reena (played by Vritika Gupta) is portrayed as immature and naive, in conflict with her Jehovah’s Witness parents. She feels alienated from other kids by her Indian heritage and is desperate to be popular when she falls under the sway of Josephine (Chloe Guidry), queen bee of the local group home.
Josephine’s tough-girl guise belies the hurt of a broken home life. She hero-worships mobster John Gotti and tries to start her own gang modelled on the Crips. Her acolytes include fellow group-home resident Dusty (Aiyana Goodfellow) and Kelly (Izzy G.), who’s in thrall to Josephine (and vice versa) despite coming from a stable, well-to-do family.
The other key teenage character is Warren (Javon Walton, “Euphoria”), a seemingly gentle soul whose abandonment by his father stirs up dark impulses.
(It’s worth noting that of the perpetrators, only Warren’s and Kelly’s real names are used; that’s because they were tried as adults while the others were tried as youths and couldn’t be named in Canadian court.)
Warren is the most sympathetic of the group present the night Reena is killed and the one to whom Rebecca is most drawn as she insinuates herself into the clique, conflating Warren with the brother she lost years earlier. She feels unresolved guilt and grief over his death.
(The real Rebecca died in 2022 of lung cancer but was deeply involved in the miniseries, created by actor and writer Quinn Shephard, and is credited as an executive producer.)
Obviously, the series takes liberties with the facts — a disclaimer says that though it’s based on actual events, certain elements have been fictionalized or invented. If you want to fact-check, the internet is full of articles comparing the show to the real case (as well as details that Disney Plus doesn’t want revealed as spoilers, even though they’re easily searchable online).
One major invention is the character of Cam Bentland, played by the sublime Lily Gladstone. Apparently based on a composite of real police officers, Cam moves the plot along in various ways: as a foil and confidant to childhood friend Rebecca; as one of the few officers who realizes that Reena isn’t just a runaway and that other teenagers are involved when she’s found dead; and as an Indigenous woman adopted by white parents, which opens the door to conversations about race.
The ever-reliable Archie Panjabi (“The Good Wife,” “Departure”) plays Reena’s mother, Suman, while Ezra Faroque Khan plays her father, Manjit, whose book “Reena: A Father’s Story” was part of the source material for this miniseries.
Together, they sensitively portray the bewilderment and frustration of parents struggling to understand and control their wayward daughter, and the gut-wrenching grief after they lose her.
It’s a sad tale all around, one that happened in a pre-social-media, pre-Columbine age when teen-onteen violence seemed more of an anomaly than a sickening everyday reality.
You may have read recently that a retired Saanich, B.C., cop claimed the series does a “disservice” to Reena and her family but without having actually watched it, so how exactly would he know?
Likewise, the real Kelly Ellard has voiced concern that the show could re-victimize Reena’s family. Given that it took nearly 20 years for her to admit any responsibility in Reena’s death, I’d take that concern with a boulder of salt.
Personally, I didn’t find “Under the Bridge” exploitative or sensationalistic, but watch it yourself and make up your own mind.