“The Dry” takes place in a small town that used to have a river. Now that the river’s gone, what was once the riverbed bakes in the sun. It’s brown and crusty and dry as death, and it feels like a metaphor for what can happen to people over the course of two decades: The juice of life dries up, and people end up going through the motions.
The film was made in Australia and was a huge hit there when it was released earlier this year, and for about five or 10 minutes, you might reasonably wonder why. By the American standards of crime films, “The Dry” feels sedate — until it works its spell.
In the film’s calm but intense way, it grabs us from three directions. We become very interested in the solving of two crimes: one committed recently, the other 20 years in the past. And we get involved in the personal life of a federal agent who returns to his miserable hometown.
Eric Bana plays the cop, Aaron, who comes home for the funeral of a close friend. Unfortunately, this is not the usual nice sort of funeral, where everybody gets up and tells wistful, funny stories about how great the dead person was. The deceased friend is assumed to have killed himself after murdering his wife and son, with only their infant child spared.
The dead friend’s parents implore Aaron to use his investigative skills to find out who really committed the crime, and he agrees, but reluctantly. His reluctance derives from the fact that he’s persona non grata in this town: Twenty years earlier, a girl, with whom he was romantically involved, was found dead in the river, and it’s a common assumption that he killed her. (At least this assumption is held by every drunken, rowdy slob in town, but keep in mind, this is small-town Australia, so we’re talking about a major demographic.)
From early in the movie, “The Dry” flashes back to scenes of Aaron and his friends as teenagers. At first these flashbacks feel purely expository, but gradually we start appreciating the contrast that director Robert Connolly is setting up. The past vibrates with promise, while the present looks still — not quite post-apocalyptic, but its equivalent in the personal sense.
Genevieve O’Reilly (“Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” “Matrix Reloaded”) plays Bana’s former high school girlfriend, who stayed in their hometown, and she seems lively. The two of them are both gorgeous and discontented, so why don’t they get together immediately? There’s the sense here of people having acquired barnacles that make touching difficult and that these can only be scraped off with difficulty.
Both criminal cases are engrossing. The supposed murder-suicide situation is labyrinthine, with paths that intersect with everyone in town and with suspects in all directions, while the death of the teenage friend from years past takes on a depth of sadness as it goes along. BeBe Bettencourt, who plays the girl Aaron allegedly killed, is vivid and moving in a handful of brief scenes. So “The Dry” starts out fine, builds and gets better as it goes along.
Bana is rock solid throughout, able to convey sensitivity and moral probity through a not quite impassive façade — never overdoing it, never underdoing it — and yet fulfilling his duties as the movie’s locus of feeling and meaning. He never acts hurt, but he looks like he’s been hurt. You’d spot him as the good guy from 100 feet away. At home in his native country, Bana has never been better.
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“The Dry”: Crime drama. Starring Eric Bana and Genevieve O’Reilly. Directed by Robert Connolly. (R. 117 minutes.) In theaters and available to stream on video on demand starting Friday, May 21.
The Link LonkMay 18, 2021 at 06:04AM
https://datebook.sfchronicle.com/movies-tv/review-eric-bana-is-at-his-best-in-the-dry-a-gripping-australian-thriller
Review: Eric Bana is at his best in ‘The Dry,’ a gripping Australian thriller - San Francisco Chronicle
https://news.google.com/search?q=dry&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en
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