UNDER THE BRIDGE is a new Hulu crime series with eight 45-minute episodes. The core murder case is based on true events, but part of the series is mystery. Isn’t all crime series, really?! What I’m getting at is this: Don’t look up this case if you want to see the mystery unfold.
The series stars wonderful actors with the main characters being adults or teenagers. Riley Keough is essentially the narrator, who opens the series, while Lily Gladstone portrays a police officer working the case. The miniseries premieres with the two first episodes.
Not only is Under the Bridge based on a true story from 1997, but it also takes place there. In other words, this was before smartphones (even before the simple cellphone was widely used) and at the height of grunge and rap. Including all the drama and personality traits people built around this.
I was a teenager in the 90s, so I remember it quite well still. In this Hulu crime mystery series, we get the true story of how fourteen-year-old Reena Virk (Vritika Gupta) goes out to party with friends and then never returns home.
It’s based on a book by Rebecca Godfrey, and in this series, we get the story through the eyes of Godfrey (Riley Keough) and a local police officer (Lily Gladstone). We’re brought into a hidden world of the girls accused of the murder.
It’s important to note that this all happened at a time when people (especially men) couldn’t imagine that girls would get violent. Only boys in gangs fought and had conflicts with other gangs, not girls. We arrive when the police and media are forced to recognize that the world is much darker!
Obviously, getting the casting of Rebecca Godfrey right is very important, but then again, all characters are important to get right. Just one weak performance and it starts falling apart. Fortunately, this Hulu series is full of wonderful casting all around.
And many characters are fundamentally irritating people busy protecting themselves, so we need actors who can allow us to see the cracks in their polished surface as the mystery unravels.
With always brilliant Riley Keough (The Lodge, The Devil All the Time) in the lead as Rebecca Godfrey and the wonderful Lily Gladstone as Officer Cam Bentland, we’re off to a great start. Especially as we can feel the tension and chemistry from their first scene together.
Their characters knew each other as teenagers, but haven’t met in ten years. While I liked Lily Gladstone in Flowers of the Killer Moon – I mean, how could you not?! – the character in Under the Bridge is a lot deeper and darker to me. A great portrayal with so many nuances!
As some of the key younger characters, we get Vritika Gupta, Chloe Guidry (The Park), Javon “Wanna” Walton (Samaritan), Izzy G. (AJ and the Queen), and Aiyana Goodfellow (Invasion). As the parents of the victim, Reena, we have Ezra Faroque Khan and the amazing Archie Panjabi (Hijack).
Watch Under the Bridge on Hulu now!
The new Hulu crime miniseries is based on the true-crime book “Under the Bridge” by the late Rebecca Godfrey. It was adapted for the screen by Quinn Shephard. While Quinn Shephard is known by many as an actor, she also wrote and directed Not Okay (2022) and a few short films already.
The murder victim in the series is Reena Virk, and another book that is credited as having inspired the Hulu series is “Reena: A Father’s Story” by her father Manjit Virk. Geeta Vasant Patel, directed and served as an executive producer on the first episode.
Star Riley Keough executive produced with Gina Gammell (via their company Felix Culpa). Other executive producers are Samir Mehta, Liz Tigelaar and Stacey Silverman (Best Day Ever), Shephard, Godfrey, and Tara Duncan.
Directors on the remaining episodes include Nimisha Mukerji (The Imperfects), Kevin Phillips (Super Dark Times), Dinh Thai (Death and Other Details), and the series creator Quinn Shephard.
The series premieres with its two first episodes, which are then followed by one weekly episode. The eighth and final episode will be released on May 29, 2024, so we’ll be following this case for quite some time.
Under the Bridge debuts on Hulu on April 17, 2024.
