Teenagers are horrific—that much, we know. They’re a tornado of hormones, pheromones, acne, adolescence, mood swings, and frankly, bad taste. But, at least most of the time, teens are pretty harmless; most of the ones that I’ve met are too busy scrolling TikTok with the volume on its highest setting to be concerned with the matters of popularity and superficial beauty that preoccupied young people 20 years ago. (Unless you don’t have a different color Stanley cup for every day of the school week, in which case, you’re basically a microorganism in the eyes of the average teen.)
But things were different in 1997. Popularity was defined by who had the new Biggie CD and whose parents had the most money. Growing up in the ’90s was brutal, and that all-consuming—and all-too-familiar—ferocity is on vivid display in Under the Bridge, Hulu’s new limited series premiering April 17. The show, based on author Rebecca Godfrey’s 2005 book retelling of the events, dramatizes the real story of a brutal crime that happened in fall 1997, one that captivated a sleepy Canadian province and ignited a firestorm of media attention that was laser-focused on the adolescents at the center of it all. And though its two adult lead actors, Riley Keough and Oscar nominee Lily Gladstone, are certainly compelling as the two adult women wrapped up in the investigation, it’s the teen actors who run away with the series. They give the show an unnerving, deeply gut-wrenching sense of volatility and violence, one which makes Under the Bridge almost impossible to look away from.
In November 1997, the body of 14-year-old Reena Virk (played in the show by Vritika Gupta) was found on the shore of Gorge Inlet in Saanich, British Columbia. The chaos that followed was unlike anything that the population of the greater area of Victoria, British Columbia had ever seen before. “The story would haunt the island for years to come,” Rebecca Godfrey (Keough) says in a voiceover in the opening moments of the premiere. “It forever changed a fact that once seemed so immutable, so fundamental: Young girls in Victoria we were supposed to protect, not be protected from.” This sentiment initially feels melodramatic and paranoid, perhaps even a bit prosaic. But that seems intentional, given that it reflects how Godfrey writes the firsthand accounts in her book, in which Godfrey details her time visiting Victoria as an adult. She returned to the city, where she grew up, to write a book reminiscing on its singular youth culture. Little did Godfrey know that she would be stumbling into a harrowing crime, already in progress.
