In 1997, fourteen-year old Reena Virk went out to a party and never came home. Her story was turned into a best-selling true crime book, Rebecca Godfrey’s Under The Bridge, and now that book has been turned into a true crime series on Hulu and Disney Plus. As you can see from the trailer below, it’s gripping and tragic stuff. The show will be streaming from April 17.
Godfrey’s book was described as a “tour de force of crime reporting”, “a swift, harrowing classic” and “ultimately terrifying”, and without giving away any spoilers, it’s a book about a crime that’s as disturbing as it is timely. It’s a story of a kid who’s in the wrong place at the wrong time, and of the investigation that set out to discover what happened to her and to discover who was responsible.
If you don’t want to know any more you might want to skip the next bit of this story…
What we know about Under The Bridge on Hulu
The show follows the events described in the book, with Rebecca Godfrey – played here by Riley Keogh – teaming up with the local police officer played by Lily Gladstone as the investigation centres on a group of teen girls who are accused of Reena’s murder.
What they discover is deeply disturbing and, if it’s like the book, utterly heartbreaking. Eight people were accused of Reena’s murder, seven girls and a boy, and as Keogh’s voiceover says in the trailer: “young girls are the ones we’re supposed to protect, not be protected from.” The details of Reena’s murder and the motivation for it would haunt the local community for years to come.
I’m always uneasy with shows that turn real-life tragedies into entertainment, but when true crime journalism is at its best it can help us understand how such tragedies happen, and hopefully help us understand how to prevent similar ones from happening in the future. And Godfrey’s book is definitely one of the better true crime books, so hopefully that’ll be reflected in this adaptation.
Under The Bridge premieres on Hulu on April 17.
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