They say “you can always go home again,” but that doesn’t mean it’s not complicated. This is the conundrum faced by Aaron Falk (Eric Bana) in the slow-burn Australian thriller “The Dry,” co-written and directed by Robert Connolly, based on the debut novel by Judith Harper. After massive box office success in Oz, “The Dry” rolls into U.S. theaters and rental sites, providing the kind of grounded, adult drama that is all too rare these days.
The film opens with a tragic murder-suicide, as the cries of a young baby bleat plaintively against the harsh landscape of the drought-stricken Kiewarra, a (fictional) small town in the farming region of Victoria, Australia. The town hasn’t seen rain in 324 days, adding to the tense atmosphere after Karen, Billy and Luke Hadler are discovered shot to death, presumably at Luke’s hand. Baby Charlotte was spared.
Luke’s parents (Julia Blake and Bruce Spence) accept the official conclusion of Luke's responsibility, but questions nag. They urge Luke’s childhood friend Aaron, a federal agent now living in Melbourne, to return home and attend the funeral, then ask him to look into things: the family’s finances, a motive, anything to ease their minds.
But returning home and opening what seems like a closed investigation is complicated for Aaron, especially in a small town where the memories are long. He hasn’t returned since being suspected in the drowning death of a close friend and love interest, Ellie (BeBe Bettencourt), as a teenager. It all comes rushing back as he looks into old friend Luke’s death, and reconnects with Gretchen (Genevieve O’Reilly), the fourth member of their tight-knit clique.
In small towns, everyone’s a suspect, especially where farmers are pushed to the brink financially by the punishing climate, and grudges run deep. The town is a tinderbox on both an environmental and emotional level; any spark could set the whole thing up in flames. Aaron’s history looms over his investigation, and the double-stranded mystery unwinds simultaneously in the past and present, while he questions the capability of his friend to commit such horrors.
Connolly’s script, co-written with Harry Cripps, is lean, but laden with meaning, every word or phrase doing double duty and taking on menace as Aaron delves ever deeper into the secrets of this small town. At times, it can feel a bit like “Clue” with so many plausible characters and motives swirling around and around, but Bana keeps it grounded, as a professional trying to do his job the best he can, while caught up in memory and trauma.
“The Dry” captures the presence of this dusty, remote location, the smallness of the town against the enormity of the land, and the outsize human dramas that play out upon it. Connolly dives into Aaron’s subjectivity with ease, his flashbacks flooding the screen as they do his subconscious. The score, by Peter Raeburn, is used sparingly, but evokes an eerie, ghostly essence, this town as populated by spirits as it is people. Music is an integral part of representing the spiritual plane that exists mostly in memory. In one stunning flashback moment, Ellie sings “Under the Milky Way,” by Sydney New Wave band The Church. It’s a song she remembers her mother singing, and it exists as a beautifully ephemeral moment, lingering on the air before slipping away like a specter on the arid wind.
‘THE DRY’
3 stars (out of 4)
Cast: Eric Bana, Bebe Bettencourt, Julia Blake, Bruce Spence, Genevieve O’Reilly, Keir O’Donnell
Directed by Richard Connolly
Running time: 1 hour, 57 minutes
Rated: R (for violence, and language throughout)
Playing: In select theaters and available on demand and digital Friday
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May 18, 2021 at 10:52PM
https://www.gazettextra.com/entertainment/movie-review-the-dry-provides-grounded-adult-drama-that-is-all-too-rare-these-days/article_a83302f4-4a3d-5e73-bcff-08681c1be62a.html
Movie review: 'The Dry' provides grounded, adult drama that is all too rare these days - Gazettextra
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