Usually, Canadian-centered TV or films put me off. The quality often still feels like an afterschool special out of the 90s, and I feel nothing ever stays true to what life is like here. I was worried this was going to be the case with Under the Bridge, a new mini-series on Disney+. I was happy to see that by the end of the show’s eight episodes, real depth and issues were explored, even if the story itself doesn’t paint a perfect light on Canada’s West Coast.
Under the Bridge is a truly tragic story based on a book that was based on true events that took place in 1997 in Western Canada. In the series—and real-life—14-year-old Reena Virk was beaten and drowned after being bullied. The series follows the mystery of who killed her through the eyes of writer Rebecca Godfrey (Riley Keough), who wrote the book Under the Bridge is based on.
Rebecca comes back to the town and aims to write a story about this tragedy after avoiding some troubles of her own. On the road to reconnecting with old friends and the town she was raised in, she begins to follow the girls accused of Reena’s murder. Speaking to teens as a writer, not a cop or parent, opens doors for her and gives insight into what happened that November night in 1997.
Though this is based on a true story, I didn’t know the outcome, and I didn’t look it up. I wanted to be taken along on the same journey the characters were. Under the Bridge did a great job keeping the mystery alive throughout the series, as it isn’t until the final episode that you learn what truly happened. With a true story, it is very easy to dump all the details out in the first episode, making it very hard to connect with characters or care about what happens next. Here, I kept watching because I had to know.
“Under the Bridge did a great job keeping the mystery alive throughout the series, as it isn’t until the final episode that you learn what truly happened.”
What I struggled with while watching Under the Bridge, however, was finding any character that I could make sense of. Throughout the story, you wonder why the mother is so cold. You wonder why these children took part in a beating for no reason. You wonder why these girls are so brutal and cruel, and not a lot of it makes sense.
More specifically, Rebecca is mostly the one we follow, as well as her estranged friend and cop Cam Bentland, played by the 2024 Oscar nominee Lily Gladstone. This is all well and good, but Rebecca makes some downright odd choices. Cam was honestly the only character I walked away from Under the Bridge supporting fully.
Rebecca, this grown woman, befriends a 17-year-old boy, Warren Glowatski (Javon ‘Wanna’ Walton, The Umbrella Acadamy), quite closely. As a mother, I can understand maternal instinct and even take pity on a child who is truly struggling, but something about the whole relationship felt borderline inappropriate. While I was supposed to be bonding with Rebecca, I was left questioning her choices consistently.
What that relationship did do was give us some insight into Warren, who immediately makes you want to give the kid a great big hug. But that is sort of what Under the Bridge does best—it makes you fall for the underdog. You would think that in a story like this, you’d want justice for Reena, siding with her or her family or at least the police.
Don’t get me wrong, justice for Reena is obviously the main goal for us as viewers, for Cam, for Reena’s family and even for Rebecca. The twist is that Under the Bridge is more about exploring what “justice” is rather than getting justice in the eyes of Reena’s parents or the law.
What kept me so enthralled with Under the Bridge is its ability to explore a grey zone when it comes to justice and morality. This doesn’t just mean checking out crooked cops or murder. It means taking a look at the justice system as a whole. Is someone who is legally guilty punishable to the fullest extent of the law, or do people make really terrible mistakes that cost people lives but still deserve forgiveness?
“Under the Bridge is more about exploring what ‘justice’ is rather than getting justice in the eyes of Reena’s parents or the law.”
Under the Bridge also puts racism and classism on blast. The way people casually reacted to the news of Reena’s murder, with comments on the way she looked rather than her death or who she was, were called out. Reena’s mother, Suman, claims that things like this never would have happened if Reena was white.
In the results of the trial, we see that one person who is clearly guilty without remorse gets off easy because he comes from a good family. But another who was there but did far less, who is eaten alive by the guilt of not stopping it, is punished to the maximum, but he came from a poor family and never had a chance in life.
One of the most powerful lines in the entire series also comes from Suman, played by Archi Panjabi, and it had me break down in tears, hoping that my children always feel love, “Maybe if someone had shown you kindness earlier, my daughter could have lived.” It’s a dark look at the law and nature versus nurture, and to do what Suman did and learn to forgive—she eventually spoke on behalf of one of the people found guilty, allowing them parole—very much screams that the world is not all black and white.
We find out at the end of the series that part of it also came from Manjit Virk, Reena Virk’s father. He released a book called Reena: A Father’s Story in 2008 about life before and after Reena’s death, and I am happy to see that it was considered when making Under the Bridge rather than just looking at this story from Rebecca’s perspective. I am very interested in seeing his side of the story after all the Virk family went through.
The series started off a bit weak, making me feel like it was going to be a shallow look at “bad girl teens” who get carried away with cheesy lines and stereotypical rebellious attitudes for the first few episodes. Instead, Under the Bridge was a deep dive into morality and justice, and the second half kept me on the edge of my seat until the very end.
