Riley Keough (left) plays the role of Rebecca Godfrey and Lily Gladstone is Cam Bentland in the miniseries Under the Bridge. Photo: Supplied.
It’s disconcerting to realise how an altercation between a group of teenagers can result in murder.
Under the Bridge is a brusque, edifying look at the 1997 murder of teenager Reena Virk by seven of her peers. The clandestine world of the teenagers accused of a vicious murder discloses shocking truths about the unlikely killer.
A true-crime drama, this eight-episode television miniseries, developed by Quinn Shephard, is based on the book of the same name by Rebecca Godfrey. Reality coalesces with inventive procedure for a gut-wrenching account of teenage violence. Insensitive teens are scary. So hard to fathom the mean pack mentality that’s displayed. It’s sad that they try to glorify these fights.
The series chronicles the real-life murder case of Reena Virk (played by Vritika Gupta), a 14-year-old girl who was killed following a bullying incident under a bridge in the small town of Saanich, British Columbia, Canada. She was invited to a social gathering near the Craigflower Bridge in Saanich, a community outside Victoria. She never returned home. After a petty fight between friends, they beat and drowned Reena.
Police found Reena’s body in a gorge on 22 November, 1997, eight days after she was killed. Her death led to the upheaval of a quiet community as the victim’s family and onlookers alike begged for answers as to what happened and why.
The series is told from the point of view of Rebecca Godfrey (Riley Keough, Mad Max: Fury Road, American Honey, Logan Lucky), a former Saanich resident who returns home from New York to write a book on teen girls growing up in the area. Following Reena’s brutal death, the focus of Godfrey’s book shifts to the murder investigation, with six girls and one boy implicated in connection with the harrowing crime.
However, Godfrey’s research for her book goes hand-in-hand with deep personal trauma as she’s haunted by the death of her brother years earlier. Furthermore, upon her return home, Godfrey is committed as she confronts her complex past with the lead police officer on the Virk murder case, Cam Bentland, played convincingly by Lily Gladstone (Killers of the Flower Moon.)
Gladstone became the first Native American to win the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama, for portraying Mollie Kyle, who survived the Osage Indian murders, in Martin Scorsese’s crime drama film in 2023.
The show’s cast also includes Ezra Faroque Khan as Reena’s father Manjit; Archie Panjabi is Suman, Reena’s mother; Chloe Guidry plays Josephine Bell; Javon ‘’Wanna’’ Walton is Warren Glowatski; Izzy G is Kelly Ellard; and Aiyana Goodfellow is Dusty Pace.
While Under the Bridge is being billed as a true-crime series, each episode opens with the disclaimer: “Based on actual events — Certain elements have been fictionalised or invented for dramatic purposes.”
Reena was the daughter of an Indian immigrant, Manjit Virk, and an Indo-Canadian, Suman, whose family had converted from Hinduism to the Jehovah’s Witness faith soon after Reena’s grandmother, Tarsem, first arrived in Canada.
Manjit wrote Reena: A Father’s Story in 2008, which details his daughter’s life and death. According to Manjit, Reena grew up feeling like an outsider and was bullied throughout her youth, and felt her “biggest problem was her associations, her friends”. Reena had a complicated relationship with her parents.
Series creator Quinn Shephard worked closely with Godfrey before her death from lung cancer in October 2022. Most of the plot and characters are taken from Godfrey’s book, as well as her countless transcripts and notes, and from the memoir published by Manjit Virk.
Shephard and her colleagues are translucent about the numerous fictionalised and invented details within the show, including name changes, rearranged timelines, and the policewoman character played by Gladstone.
Godfrey described Reena, in her book, as possessing “a rare combination of boldness and innocence”, and that she was “dark skinned and heavy in a town and time that valued the thin and the blonde”. By the time of her death, Reena “had announced that she did not want to be a Jehovah’s Witness any longer”, and had rebelled against the rules of her household by skipping meals, smoking cigarettes, changing her clothes, and running away from home. She was also described as an “occasional runaway who did not get along well with her parents”.
In the final hour of Under the Bridge, some may find it a benevolent gesture, though disturbing, that the series highlights the importance of compassion and absolution in the aftermath of human cruelty.
Under the Bridge, an eight-episode miniseries developed by Quinn Shephard, is streaming on Disney+
