“Under the Bridge” Premieres on Hulu
A new mini-series based on Rebecca Godfrey’s true crime book Under the Bridge: The True Story of the Murder of Reena Virk will premiere next week on Hulu.
The death of Reena Virk in 1997 sent shockwaves through the suburbs of Victoria, British Columbia. Virk, then fourteen years old, was attacked and subsequently drowned by a group of her peers at a party outside the city. Residents of the Canadian city were stunned by the brutality and callousness of the murder, which became the center of a media frenzy over bullying and “girl-violence.” These headlines caught the attention of novelist and true crime writer Rebecca Godfrey, who traveled back to her hometown on Vancouver Island to research the case herself and interview the teenagers involved. Her 2005 true crime book Under the Bridge: The True Story of the Murder of Reena Virk shines a light on Reena Virk’s life and attempts to make sense of the motives of her killers. Under the Bridge was a success in the true crime world. Shortly after publication, Reese Witherspoon acquired the film rights to the book with the intention of adapting it with her production company, but the project stalled out in 2011. Now, nearly twenty years after the book’s initial release, Virk’s story is being adapted by Hulu into a mini-series of the same name.
The cast of Under the Bridge features Daisy Jones and the Six star Riley Keogh as Godfrey and Oscar nominee Lily Gladstone as a fictionalized police officer investigating the case, The show, which intends to depict a dramatized and abridged account of the book, toggles between the events leading up to Virk’s death and Godfrey’s time researching. Creator Quinn Shepard discussed her decision to use fictionalized elements with Elle magazine in March, saying that the process brought up questions about how to tell the story ethically, “How could we tell a story that felt like it spoke to a universal truth about being a child when we were missing certain details?” Shepard asked. Ultimately, showrunners made the decision to dive into Reena Virk’s inner life with the intention of making her a central character in her own story.
Under the Bridge premieres on April 17th only on Hulu.