This television drama told the shocking tale of the murder of a fourteen-year-old Indian girl Reena Virk by a teenage boy and girl in British Columbia, Canada in 1997. Young Reena was beginning to rebel against her Jehovah's Witness parents, in particular her strict mother and after being subjectef to racial taunts and casual bullying, she obviously felt keenly the cultural and identity issues she encountered when she tried to mix in with the kids of her own age.
And what kids they were, more like feral animals you'd say, especially the group of gangster-loving young girls from a nearby children's home, whose acceptance she longs for. We see her assimilate their malign influence as she gets into gangster rap, begins swearing, smoking and drinking and generally disrespecting her parents. It all ends up with the young girl so piqued at not being allowed entry into the three-girl gang she looks up to that she cavalierly takes on the ringleader by publicly shaming her, which triggers the terrible revenge visited on her one dark night by the leader's doting but dangerous right-hand girl keen to sate her own bloodlust and an impressionable young boy carried along it seems by events.
Often very difficult to watch, the series is careful not to paint young Reena as a saint, but it's obvious that her need to belong forced her to make some bad decisions none more so than when she goes along with the gang-leader's suggestion that she fabricate sexual accusations against her own father just so that she can get him arrested and herself into the children's home where the three other girls live.
All of the stuff about Reena and her life and death I found riveting and compellingly acted by the young cast playing the various children. I have to say though that I was a lot less convinced by the highlighting of some of the other characters in the story, most particularly the female author who becomes so fascinated with the case and the evil magnetism emanating from the head girl and her adoring confederate and later the young man who participated in the murder that she often comes close to losing her perspective on events. She grew up in the same neighbourhood and even has her own back story of loss and guilt from her own childhood.
Her story also elides into that of her childhood friend, now the diligent and ambitious lead cop in the case, her former lover, played by Lily Gladstone, who's also given a vaguely connecting backstory where we learn that she too was adopted at birth and has her own identity issues. It all seemed too conveniently and unnecessarily interconnected for dramatic purposes, detracting from the real story here, the brutal murder of a teenage girl by two fellow teenagers. Lastly we're also shown at length the courtship of Reena's own parents some twenty years before which again seemed like it was an unnecessary rabbit hole to go down and explore.
I really wish that show-runners of productions like this would desist deviating from the heart of a true story like this almost, it seems to me, for padding purposes, which irritated me as well as the voguish but occasionally confusing back and forth treatment of the different timelines at play. And, old fogey that I am, I naturally hated the constant rap soundtrack even as I appreciate it was popular at the time.
Still, this was largely compelling stuff right from the beginning, concluding as you'd expect with a set-piece courtroom scene where justice doesn't initially appear to be served although there's some consolation here if you read the on-screen printed postscripts. Gladstone is far and away the best adult actor on show but it's the ensemble acting of the young adults at the heart of the matter who really deserve credit as they pull you inexorably into the gathering tragedy.
Good as it often was, this eight part series could have been better yet if it hadn't felt the need to over-emphasise the roles of lesser characters to the extent that they detracted from the utterly compulsive dark heart of this disturbing real-life event.
And what kids they were, more like feral animals you'd say, especially the group of gangster-loving young girls from a nearby children's home, whose acceptance she longs for. We see her assimilate their malign influence as she gets into gangster rap, begins swearing, smoking and drinking and generally disrespecting her parents. It all ends up with the young girl so piqued at not being allowed entry into the three-girl gang she looks up to that she cavalierly takes on the ringleader by publicly shaming her, which triggers the terrible revenge visited on her one dark night by the leader's doting but dangerous right-hand girl keen to sate her own bloodlust and an impressionable young boy carried along it seems by events.
Often very difficult to watch, the series is careful not to paint young Reena as a saint, but it's obvious that her need to belong forced her to make some bad decisions none more so than when she goes along with the gang-leader's suggestion that she fabricate sexual accusations against her own father just so that she can get him arrested and herself into the children's home where the three other girls live.
All of the stuff about Reena and her life and death I found riveting and compellingly acted by the young cast playing the various children. I have to say though that I was a lot less convinced by the highlighting of some of the other characters in the story, most particularly the female author who becomes so fascinated with the case and the evil magnetism emanating from the head girl and her adoring confederate and later the young man who participated in the murder that she often comes close to losing her perspective on events. She grew up in the same neighbourhood and even has her own back story of loss and guilt from her own childhood.
Her story also elides into that of her childhood friend, now the diligent and ambitious lead cop in the case, her former lover, played by Lily Gladstone, who's also given a vaguely connecting backstory where we learn that she too was adopted at birth and has her own identity issues. It all seemed too conveniently and unnecessarily interconnected for dramatic purposes, detracting from the real story here, the brutal murder of a teenage girl by two fellow teenagers. Lastly we're also shown at length the courtship of Reena's own parents some twenty years before which again seemed like it was an unnecessary rabbit hole to go down and explore.
I really wish that show-runners of productions like this would desist deviating from the heart of a true story like this almost, it seems to me, for padding purposes, which irritated me as well as the voguish but occasionally confusing back and forth treatment of the different timelines at play. And, old fogey that I am, I naturally hated the constant rap soundtrack even as I appreciate it was popular at the time.
Still, this was largely compelling stuff right from the beginning, concluding as you'd expect with a set-piece courtroom scene where justice doesn't initially appear to be served although there's some consolation here if you read the on-screen printed postscripts. Gladstone is far and away the best adult actor on show but it's the ensemble acting of the young adults at the heart of the matter who really deserve credit as they pull you inexorably into the gathering tragedy.
Good as it often was, this eight part series could have been better yet if it hadn't felt the need to over-emphasise the roles of lesser characters to the extent that they detracted from the utterly compulsive dark heart of this disturbing real-life event.
