'Under the Bridge' review: You’re in for a shocking experience to remember

By Peter Travers

The talent fronting "Under the Bridge," the harrowing, haunting eight-part, true-crime limited series on Hulu, is phenomenal.

There's Lily Gladstone, of Blackfeet and Cajun-Dutch heritage, who came whisper close to an Oscar this year as the bartered Native-American bride in "Killers of the Flower Moon." Also starring is Riley Keough, the grandchild of Elvis Presley with her own fierce talent visible in such projects as "American Honey" and her Emmy-nominated title role in "Daisy Jones and the Six."

Gladstone plays a cop on the case. And Keough is an author trying to make sense of it. Together, they share the screen with young actors whose promising careers are just getting ready to launch. You're in for a shocking experience to remember.

HULU

Riley Keough in "Under the Bridge," 2024.

Set near Victoria, the safe and touristy capital of the Canadian province of British Columbia, the series focuses on an infamous 1997 murder. The victim is 14-year-old Reena Virk (Vritika Gupta), the rebellious daughter of strict but loving Jehovah's Witness parents, Indian immigrants Suman (Archie Panjabi) and Manjit (Ezra Faroque Khan). Both actors are devastating.

The series investigates the role of race and religion in the death of Reena, but digs deeper into the psychological roots of girl-gang bullying. That topic brings author Rebecca Godfrey (Keough) home to Canada to write a book about troubled Victoria females who the cops cruelly call "Bic girls," after the disposable lighters.

Godfrey collaborated with skilled "Under the Bridge" creator Quinn Shepard on the TV scripts, but never lived to see the final result, having died from lung cancer in 2022 at age 54.

Unlike the book, the series introduces Rebecca into the action, including her relationship with Cam Bentland (Gladstone), a police officer who was formerly Rebecca's lover. Having been adopted into the family of a white police chief (Matt Craven), the indigenous Cam knows from the inside what it feels like to be an outsider.

"Under the Bridge" could have easily slipped into another cliched treatise about girls gone bad. Instead, it works hard to put a human face on inhuman behavior. The responsible filmmakers never get too graphic in detailing the night when Reena was punched, kicked and beaten at the hands of six girls and one 16-year-old boy. But you'll feel the horror in your bones.

The triumph of the series is getting under the skins of the perpetrators, as Truman Capote did with "In Cold Blood." All praise to the newbie actors. Chloe Guidry is scarily good as Josephine Bell, the ringleader of the traumatized teens living in the Seven Oaks foster care group home, where only Dusty (a heartbreaking Aiyana Goodfellow) seems capable of actual feeling.

HULU

Lily Gladstone in "Under The Bridge," 2024.

Resentful over parental neglect, Josie fangirls over gangster John Gotti and harbors delusions of forming her own Crip Mafia Cartel. Yet Josie is the one Reena most wants to be like, obeying her demands even when Josie tells Reena to falsely accuse her devoted father of sexual abuse.

When Reena retaliates by phoning Josie's friends with the fake news that she has AIDS, Josie goes into attack mode and puts a cigarette out right between Reena's eyes.

But what of Kelly (Izzy G.),15, with a supportive family on her side and no relationship with empathy, except a skill at faking it. The same goes for Warren Glowatski (a mesmerizing Javon Walton), 16, whose boyish good looks and manners persuaded Rebecca to take his side, though he later admits to kicking Reena in the head for the "rush" of it.

As an audience, we piece together what happened along with Rebecca and Cam. And Keough and Gladstone make us see the hard truth in their every wincing look and healing gesture. Though this whiplash of a series can't offer justice for Reena, it comes closest in pleading for understanding (never forgiveness) of the troll under the bridge in all of us.