Under the Bridge review – this true-crime drama just doesn’t feel right

Occasionally, mean girls turn murderous – very occasionally, though, this rarity offers no comfort to the victims’ devastated families. Such was the case in 1997, in Saanich, British Columbia, when 14-year-old Reena Virk was beaten by six teenage girls and killed by another and a teenage boy. Under the Bridge is an eight-part dramatised version of this true story, based on the 2005 non-fiction book about it by journalist Rebecca Godfrey, (played here by Daisy Jones and the Six’s Riley Keough, showcasing her flinty strengths).

Reena (a fine performance by Vritika Gupta, comprising all the overconfidence and insecurities that make adolescents so vulnerable even when they have no other aggravating circumstances to contend with) is a troubled teen. She is banished to all sorts of peripheries by her race (her father Manjit, played by Ezra Faroque Khan, is an immigrant from India, her mother Suman, played by Archie Panjabi, Indo-Canadian) and her religion (Suman is Jehovah’s Witness among a primarily Sikh community within an overwhelmingly white area). So the allure of the tight-knit gang of girls from the local group home is strong.

Almost incredible truth … Under the Bridge. Photograph: Darko Sikman/Hulu

The gang is led by Jo (a fantastically chilling, dead-eyed Chloe Guidry) and her second in command Kelly (Izzy G), who are fascinated by the mafia generally and John Gotti in particular. For those of you who have never been a teenage girl, this is not as odd as it sounds. Loyalty is everything. When Reena, in revenge for not being allowed to go to a party, steals Jo’s address book and rings round her contacts spreading gossip and seeding rumours about her, her fate – did she but know it – is sealed. She is invited to the party after all, and never comes home.

Her family suffer the police indifference to her disappearance for days. Reena may not quite be one of the “Bic girls” – the nickname Jo tells her the police have for those in foster care “because we’re disposable” – but she is close enough. Only policewoman Cam, another outsider – an Indigenous woman adopted as a child by a white family who are depicted as casually racist without compunction – eventually takes the time to look for the missing girl. She hears talk of a fight near the town’s bridge, jangles a few weak links in the local teens’ interconnected mass of loyalties, takes a look at CCTV and timelines, then gradually begins to piece together the awful truth.

So, too, is Godfrey slowly forced, as her bond with Jo grows and her investigation deepens, towards belief in an almost incredible truth. She tries desperately to understand, to find the humanity in the actions of those who beat Reena so horribly and those who then drowned her, not least to try to absolve herself of her own past misdeeds. But it is something vanishingly rare, this degree of violence from girls against one of their number, and Under the Bridge can only ask whether there are some things beyond understanding and beyond forgiveness.

Over the eight episodes, Under the Bridge covers its ground meticulously. It is carefully even-handed, non-exploitative (it does not linger on the violence, or depict much of it visually) and relentlessly sober. Racism and classism are all examined as contributory factors as is the emotional deprivation suffered by those in care. The simple chaos of the overwrought teenage years, and the influences that will rush in to fill the voids are given their moments in the sun.

There is no winning, of course, with the telling of any story based round this kind of horror. The above approach is a noble and worthy effort by all involved. But noble and worthy does not, alas, scintillating television make. The two episodes available for review fairly crawl by, with no sign that things are due to pick up thereafter, thanks to a fairly blunt script (“The devil is working inside Josephine Bell … They have nothing. Reena has everything. They want to destroy it,” says Reena’s uncle, putting him apparently also several dozen steps ahead of the police at this point.) Keough is always worth watching but she has little to get her teeth into here and Godfrey’s quick, apparently thoughtless enmeshing with the gang does not ring true. Several badly demarcated flashbacks to different points in the history do not help either. Were the girls suffering mental health problems? Were they immoral? Or just at that particular time, in that particular formation and gathered around that particular poor, misfortunate child, dangerous to know? I’m not sure whether six more industrious episodes will get us any closer to finding out.

• Under the Bridge aired on ITV1 and is available on ITVX.