General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Under the Bridge (2024 TV series)

Under the Bridge is a 2024 American true-crime drama miniseries on Hulu, adapted by Quinn Shephard from Rebecca Godfrey's 2005 nonfiction book about the 1997 murder of 14-year-old Reena Virk in British Columbia. The eight-episode series premiered on April 17, 2024, and ran through May 29, 2024.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Format	Eight-episode limited series, TV-MA, produced by ABC Signature; premiered on Hulu April 17, 2024¹^•³
Source material	Rebecca Godfrey's 2005 book Under the Bridge: The True Story of the Murder of Reena Virk, supplemented by Manjit Virk's memoir Reena: A Father's Story⁴
Lead cast	Riley Keough as Godfrey, Lily Gladstone as officer Cam Bentland, Vritika Gupta as Reena Virk, Archie Panjabi as Suman Virk¹
Real case	Reena Virk was beaten and drowned on November 14, 1997, near the Craigflower Bridge in Saanich, a suburb of Victoria, British Columbia⁵
Outcome of the real case	Six teenage girls and one boy were sentenced for the killing⁶
Critical reception	Metascore 70 from 28 critic reviews; 87% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer from 60 reviews; 7.2/10 on IMDb from about 22,000 user ratings³^•⁷^•⁸

Spoilers

Premise and cast

The series dramatizes the events before and after the death of Reena Virk (Vritika Gupta), a 14-year-old who went to join friends at a party near a bridge and never returned home. It is told largely through two perspectives: the writer Rebecca Godfrey (Riley Keough), who returns to her hometown of Saanich while researching a book about teenage girls, and Cam Bentland (Lily Gladstone), a local police officer investigating the disappearance.¹^•⁹

The supporting cast includes Chloe Guidry as Josephine Bell, Aiyana Goodfellow as Dusty Pace, Izzy G. as Kelly Ellard, Javon "Wanna" Walton as Warren Glowatski, and Archie Panjabi as Reena's mother, Suman Virk.¹^•¹⁰ The Virk family are Jehovah's Witnesses of Indian descent, and the series contrasts tensions within the household, including Reena's conflicts with her austere religious mother, with the prejudices the family faces in their community.¹⁰

The real case

On the evening of November 14, 1997, Reena Virk was invited to a party near the Craigflower Bridge in Saanich, British Columbia. She never returned home and was later found to have been beaten and killed by a group of her peers; her body was discovered in a saltwater inlet known as the Gorge Waterway.⁵^•⁶ The case attracted media scrutiny across Canada and beyond, and the subsequent trial of the teenagers accused incited what one account describes as a moral panic in the country.¹¹^•¹² Six teenage girls and one boy were ultimately sentenced.⁶

Adaptation and creative license

The series takes its shape from Godfrey's 2005 book but also draws on the memoir Reena: A Father's Story by Reena's father, Manjit Virk, to deepen its portrait of Reena and her family.⁴ Several elements are invented or altered for television. Cam Bentland is a composite character representing the local authorities who investigated and solved the case, and in real life Godfrey did not aid in the investigation as she does in the series.⁵ Some names of the young accused were changed in accordance with Canadian law protecting the identities of young people accused or convicted of a crime, and other characters were made up entirely.¹³

Godfrey's involvement. Rebecca Godfrey, a Canadian writer who grew up in the area, spent six years investigating the case for her book, which included interviews with the accused.¹⁴ She worked for two years adapting the book for television alongside Quinn Shephard and died in 2022, roughly a week after Hulu picked up the series to series and weeks before filming began.¹⁵^•¹⁶ She is credited as an executive producer.¹

Production

Quinn Shephard, whose earlier film Blame likewise explored destructive teenage social dynamics, adapted the series for the screen; executive producing duties fall to Samir Mehta, Liz Tigelaar, and Stacey Silverman through Best Day Ever, to Shephard, Godfrey, and Tara Duncan, and to Riley Keough together with Gina Gammell through Felix Culpa. Geeta Vasant Patel directed and executive produced the first episode. It is produced by ABC Signature.¹

Reception

Critics received the series favorably. It holds a Metascore of 70, labeled "generally favorable," based on 28 critic reviews, with 21 positive, 6 mixed, and 1 negative.³ On Rotten Tomatoes it holds 87% from 60 reviews, with a critics consensus praising its sensitive handling of a brutal mystery and its exploration of cruelty.⁷ Reviewers singled out the performances, particularly those of Gladstone and Keough and of the young cast playing the teenagers.¹⁷ Recurring criticisms concerned the insertion of the author into the story and the amount of invented material in a series sharing its name with a nonfiction book.³^•¹³ Among viewers, the show holds a 7.2/10 rating on IMDb from about 22,000 ratings.⁸

Distribution

In the United States the series streams on Hulu; internationally it is carried on Disney+ in about 60 countries and on Viaplay in 5, among other services.¹⁸

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 21, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026