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‘the dry’: film review.

Eric Bana plays a federal police detective drawn back to his rural Australian roots by a brutal crime that dovetails with an unsolved mystery from his adolescence in Robert Connolly's thriller.

By David Rooney

David Rooney

Chief Film Critic

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The cracked clay riverbeds, wheat fields turned to straw and parched forests of ghostly trees in the fictional Australian town of Kiewarra paint a vivid picture of the economic despair of prolonged drought and the fears of a bushfire that could rip through the depressed farming community in an instant. That haunted canvas is the tinderbox to which a citified local returns after 20 years’ absence in Robert Connolly ‘s moody crime mystery The Dry . It also provides a strong vehicle for the return of Eric Bana , stepping into air thick with anxiety and suspicion to lead his first homegrown feature in more than a decade.

Adapted by Connolly and Harry Cripps from the best-selling 2016 debut novel by Jane Harper, the film was a sizable hit in its domestic release earlier this year. While this is the kind of slow-burn thriller now more commonly given limited-series TV treatment, the IFC import’s firm handle on pace and tone, its intriguing layers of ambiguity, compelling performances and distinctive setting should spark interest, particularly from audiences hungry for adult drama.

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Release date: May 21, 2021

Cast : Eric Bana, Genevieve O'Reilly, Keir O'Donnell, John Polson, Julia Blake, Bruce Spence Director : Robert Connolly Screenwriters : Harry Cripps, Robert Connolly, based on the book by Jane Harper

Opening text over the vast, flat landscape reveals that it’s been 324 days since the last rainfall, with snippets of radio news indicating elevated temperatures and fire warnings. Accompanied by the ominous ambient strains of Peter Raeburn’s effective score, the camera pans around the blood-splattered walls of a farmhouse, while a baby screams untended in a crib in the next room and the body of a woman lies dead in the front hallway.

Meanwhile, in one of the cold, blue-steel skyscrapers of Melbourne, Australian Federal Police officer Aaron Falk (Bana) gets a call from the father of an old friend requesting his presence at the funerals that follow what’s being reported as a murder-suicide. Aaron’s childhood friend Luke (Martin Dingle Wall) allegedly shot his wife and son before turning the rifle on himself, only sparing his baby. But certain elements don’t add up, causing Luke’s devastated parents Barb and Gerry (beloved veterans Julia Blake and Bruce Spence) to ask him to stay on and lend an informal hand in the investigation being conducted by inexperienced young police sergeant Greg Raco (Keir O’Donnell).

Lyrical flashbacks threaded through the film show the town when it was still green and the river was a favorite swimming spot for quiet, sensitive teenage Aaron (Joe Klocek), his sweetheart Gretchen (Claude Scott-Mitchell), more volatile pal Luke (Sam Corlett) and troubled Ellie (BeBe Bettencourt), who drifts between the two boys, fully connecting with neither of them. But the tragic drowning of 17-year-old Ellie left unanswered questions that continue to gnaw at Aaron and prompt hostility toward him from the hotheaded locals, particularly Ellie’s embittered father Mal (William Zappa) and roughneck cousin Grant (Matt Nable).

Connolly and gifted DP Stefan Duscio (hot off The Invisible Man ) avoid all the usual visual clichés of the Aussie backwater in movies. There are no contemplative Malickian wildlife shots of staring kangaroos or sinister-looking lizards, and not even the fluty song of the magpie that has become an almost compulsory audio element.

Yet the sense of place is palpable, from the drab main commercial street that appears unchanged in decades to the spectacular wide shots of fields starved for moisture and the intimate glimpses of the townsfolk’s careworn faces. That melancholy feeling of a once-thriving community now staring into the maw of an uncertain future is reflected in comments from Gerry about farmers becoming obsolete, replaced by GPS-controlled machinery. The muted, sun-bleached colors and the almost stately elegance of some of the visual compositions suggest the battered dignity beneath the weariness that hangs like a cloud.

As a local lad who left town in haste with his father Erik (Jeremy Lindsay Taylor) for reasons explained late in the action, Aaron has become an outsider. It’s obvious simply from the tailoring of the suit he wears to the funerals. Luke’s parents and school principal Scott Whitlam (John Polson, in front of the camera for the first time since Mission: Impossible II in 2000) are among the few who welcome him. But the most genuine warmth he receives is from Gretchen (Genevieve O’Reilly, terrific), now a single mother who has her own confusion about the tragedy of their high school years.

Editors Nick Meyers and Alexandre De Franceschi fluidly weave in the lazy interludes from that period to contrast with the sad transformation of a town blighted by misfortune. The emotional undertow of scenes with the tight-knit foursome is quite distinct from the circumspect nature of characters in the present. Even when Luke’s obnoxious alpha behavior creates friction, there’s a dreamy sense of discovery for the quartet, both of themselves and each other.

Ellie, however, remains somewhat remote, her sorrowful desire to escape evident when she sings alt-rock band The Church’s “Under the Milky Way” by a campfire. With its aura of mystery, the boulder formation deep in the forest where she goes to find solitude — and to which she brings Aaron — seems a pointed nod from Connolly to the Australian screen classic, Picnic at Hanging Rock .

Harper’s novel stirs in a number of plot points that might easily have veered into melodrama — a clandestine gay relationship, child sexual abuse, a gambling addiction, paternity questions. But Connolly, whose credits include the Anthony LaPaglia features The Bank and Balibo and a chapter of the Tim Winton anthology The Turning , directs the story of a town full of secrets with maturity and restraint. Those qualities are matched by Bana’s sober, soulful performance, as Aaron navigates his conflicted feelings about the past while reaching a grave understanding, first of the recent deaths and then of the one from long ago.

Full credits

Production companies: Made Up Stories, Arenamedia, Pick Up Truck Productions Distribution: IFC Films Cast: Eric Bana, Genevieve O'Reilly, Keir O'Donnell, John Polson, Julia Blake, Bruce Spence, William Zappa, Matt Nable, James Frecheville, Jeremy Lindsay Taylor, Joe Klocek, BeBe Bettencourt, Claude Scott-Mitchell, Sam Corlett, Miranda Tapsell, Daniel Frederiksen, Eddie Baroo, Renee Lim, Martin Dingle Wall Director: Robert Connolly Screenwriters: Harry Cripps, Robert Connolly, based on the book by Jane Harper Producers: Bruna Papandrea, Steve Hutensky, Jodi Matterson, Robert Connolly, Eric Bana Executive producers: Ricci Swart, Meryl Metni, Andrew Myer, Jane Harper, Joel Pearlman, Jeanne Snow Director of photography: Stefan Duscio Production designer: Ruby Mathers Costume designer: Cappi Ireland Music: Peter Raeburn Editors: Nick Meyers, Alexandre De Franceschi Casting: Jane Norris

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‘The Dry’ Review: Small Town Blues

Eric Bana stars as a cop visiting his hometown and getting embroiled in new murders and old traumas.

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By Nicolas Rapold

Eric Bana has been away from movie screens for a minute, depriving them of his commanding frame and mounting concern. Appropriately enough, in “The Dry” he plays a Melbourne cop, Aaron Falk, who visits his evocatively dusty hometown years after fleeing tragedy. In Robert Connolly’s adaptation of Jane Harper’s crime best seller, Aaron gets embroiled in investigating new killings and old traumas.

The gruesome murders of a high school friend and most of his family are what bring Aaron to town for the funeral service. But some still harbor grudges against him over the death of another friend from adolescence, Ellie (BeBe Bettencourt), who drowned under whitewashed circumstances years ago. Aaron’s former neighbors project their twinkly curiosity and simmering resentments about all this onto him.

Lending a hand to a sheepish local cop (Keir O’Donnell), Aaron makes his gently firm rounds. The investigation is a tad leisurely, its momentum sapped by flashbacks to the drowning and related intrigue and puppy love. So the pleasure (as in countless TV crime shows) lies in fact-finding visits with friends and strangers: a very fond pal from the old gang, Gretchen (Genevieve O’Reilly), a rumpled principal (John Polson), a bumptious suspect (Matt Nable). Special mention: the local cop’s no-nonsense wife (Miranda Tapsell).

The many red herrings and the dark-secret finale recall the reliable, compulsive appeal of a page-turner, although the tensions don’t always feel fully translated to the rhythms and demands of a film. But Bana might just be set to responsibly sort through more messy crimes: “The Dry” was only the first in Harper’s series of Aaron Falk stories.

The Dry Rated R for murders, non-murder death, and understandably heated language. Running time: 1 hour 57 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on Apple TV , Vudu and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. Please consult the guidelines outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before watching movies inside theaters.

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The Dry Reviews

The elements of The Dry may be conventional, but the presentation, as well as Connolly’s attunement to very real concerns, still burns.

Full Review | Jul 27, 2023

This is on the "better" end of most murder mystery films. Being set in an international place made it more intriguing and unique.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 11, 2022

The pacing was a bit slow. The inconsistencies with some of the characters was bothersome. I wanted more out of this murder mystery.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Dec 11, 2022

The Dry is a damn good Australian crime drama and is Eric Bana’s best performance since Munich.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 9, 2022

Emotions are often laced just underneath the surface, plain to see yet withheld just enough to where you can feel the characters piling that weight on themselves internally until they eventually break.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 22, 2022

The Dry is a compelling film that has really enhanced its source.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 22, 2022

The story doesn’t shoot for the big showy climax and it ends a little abruptly. But for a movie that puts mood, atmosphere, and characters ahead of big twists and turns, it kinda makes sense.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 17, 2022

"The Dry" takes a while to get going but still finds ways to surprise its audience as two stories simultaneously unfold.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/10 | Jun 21, 2022

"Slow-burning, soulful mystery/thriller - marking Eric Bana's return to his gritty, indie roots in Australian cinema."

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Feb 12, 2022

The Dry succeeds as an intriguing dark mystery.

Full Review | Jan 20, 2022

The film's strong sense of time and place, grounded acting, and captivating yarn make this murder mystery a cut above.

Full Review | Original Score: A- | Jan 19, 2022

An enthralling drama, perfectly paced, the mystery unfolds so methodically that it keeps its viewer enthralled.

Full Review | Dec 3, 2021

The combination of a police procedural in a barren landscape and the depressing rural tone works, but with such potent examples as 'Mare of Easttown' this year, the ensemble doesn't fare as well. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Dec 2, 2021

The hook is palpable, the whodunit is wonderfully constructed and the intrigue will keep anyone glued to their seat. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 19, 2021

There's enough mystery retained to allow a viewer the satisfaction of perhaps being just a moment or two ahead of the film's revelations without making them either overly obvious or obscure.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Nov 5, 2021

Not exactly cheerful viewing, but gripping and unforgettable all the same.

Full Review | Sep 24, 2021

It's consistently absorbing as well as evocative to the harsh finish, with mordant plot surprises Connolly keeps smartly tucked away.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 5, 2021

The landscape may be a tinderbox waiting for a spark, but the film - based on the 2016 bestseller by Jane Harper - fails to catch light.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 4, 2021

Unhurried and absorbing.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 23, 2021

A dramatic and enthralling small town whodunnit with twists all the way down.

Full Review | Original Score: 9/10 | Jun 8, 2021

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The Dry Is a Mystery You Might Find Hard to Shake

The new Australian thriller The Dry is filled with such an overwhelming sense of grief, of regret and grim foreboding, that you may lose sight of the central mystery for stretches of the movie. That’s not to suggest that Robert Connolly’s film can’t function as genre entertainment; on the contrary, it’s a gripping, grisly piece of work. But its emotional emphasis lies elsewhere, beyond the mere ins and outs of who did what where and to whom.

The film was a huge hit in Australia earlier this year, and is now opening in the U.S. in select theaters and on demand via IFC. It follows a federal agent, Aaron Falk (Eric Bana), as he returns after many years to his drought-stricken rural hometown of Kiewarra to look into a ghastly murder-suicide: Apparently, Aaron’s closest friend from childhood, Luke (Martin Dingle-Wall), has shot and killed his wife and son before taking his own life. Nobody quite knows why, and even though there are some telling inconsistencies in the evidence, the struggling town is more than ready to accept the matter as settled.

Aaron’s poking around, in other words, is not particularly welcome — especially given that many in town still believe he was somehow involved in the death of one of his and Luke’s closest friends, Ellie (BeBe Bettencourt), who drowned under suspicious circumstances 20 years ago in the river where, as kids, they spent much of their time. As Aaron investigates the more recent killing, flashbacks slowly reveal what happened between him, Luke, Ellie, and another close friend, Gretchen (played as an adult by the wonderful Genevieve O’Reilly). If Luke was indeed responsible for these killings in the present day, could he also have been responsible for Ellie’s mysterious death — and, if so, does that mean Aaron might have unwittingly enabled his friend in the murder?

It’s a tangle of suspicion, shame, and buried memory, and the land becomes something of a metaphor for the corrosive power of evil as Aaron wanders around this shriveled, devastated community. The drought has turned vast stretches of the area into dry scrub. Anything green appears to have vanished from the earth, and the streets go empty come nightfall. He visits the forest and river where they played as kids and where Ellie died. Now, it’s just dry wasteland, all cracks and dust. An atmosphere of barren dread permeates the film, enhanced immeasurably by Peter Raeburn’s elegantly moody score.

Few performers over the years have been as good at quietly conveying thought as Bana: He has some of the most expressive eyes in the business. While some actors make us wonder what’s going on inside their heads, Bana has an uncanny ability to let us know exactly what’s going on inside his head without uttering a word — thereby pulling us into his characters’ inner conflicts. On the surface, he plays Aaron as a calm, methodical professional, always assessing the situation and the evidence at hand. But there’s a vindictive gleam in his eye as well, and for all his by-the-books approach to the case, there’s a streak of self-destructiveness to this haunted man’s quest for the truth. He may seem sturdy and reliable, but Aaron is a chaos agent at heart — both investigator and avenging angel.

As The Dry proceeds, we learn more about the circumstances around, and the consequences of, Ellie’s death, and we see how the town turned on Aaron and his father. Betrayal and rage, it seems, have festered within him for years, and now he projects the suspicion back onto the town itself. To Aaron, everyone here seems like a potential killer, even those closest to him; a rekindled romance with Gretchen is consumed by both his guilt and his suspicion. (It helps, of course, that the script by Connolly and Harry Cripps, adapting Jane Harper’s novel, expertly deploys several compelling red herrings over the course of the investigation.)

With so many flashbacks and suspects, The Dry could have easily become mired in episodic tedium, but grief is the glue that holds the story together. It’s rare for a mystery to mourn so much with its characters. Usually, such films dose us with a bit of bereavement early on, to set the emotional stakes, and then go along their merry genre way. But the more Aaron investigates, the more sorrow he seems to uncover. By the time the film’s climax rolls around, we get the dutiful revelations, but we don’t really get anything resembling closure. The Dry is a beautiful thriller that leaves us not with explanations, but with overwhelming sadness.

• movie review
• robert connolly
• genevieve o'reilly

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Summary Based on the global bestseller by Jane Harper, a federal agent’s (Eric Bana) homecoming leads to a deeply personal murder investigation that reopens old wounds and threatens to unravel the tight-knit small town.

Directed By : Robert Connolly

Written By : Harry Cripps, Robert Connolly, Jane Harper, Samantha Strauss

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‘The Dry’ Review: Eric Bana Returns to Aussie Features in a Rattling Good Mystery-Thriller

A country town with plenty of secrets and a city cop with a troubled past are the ingredients of a gripping yarn directed by Robert Connolly.

By Richard Kuipers

Richard Kuipers

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The barren earth surrounding a drought-stricken Aussie town provides fertile ground for mystery, suspense and punchy emotional drama in “ The Dry .” This enthralling adaptation of Jane Harper’s international bestseller stars a spot-on Eric Bana as a city detective whose investigation of an apparent murder-suicide in his hometown triggers renewed suspicion about his involvement in a mysterious death that’s haunted the community for two decades. Expertly directed and co-written by respected filmmaker Robert Connolly (“Balibo,” “Paper Planes”), “The Dry” has all the character intrigue, clever plot twists and red herrings to keep viewers guessing. It should become a sizeable summer hit when released in local cinemas on Jan. 1. Broad international streaming exposure is assured.

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Headlining his first Aussie feature since 2007’s “Romulus, My Father,” Bana is perfectly cast as Federal Agent Aaron Falk. A dedicated detective based in Melbourne, Aaron hasn’t set foot in hometown Kiewarra since departing abruptly following the still-unsolved death of high school friend Ellie Deacon (BeBe Bettencourt) some 20 years ago. The once-thriving rural town is now an economically distressed and socially damaged dustbowl that’s been in drought for a decade and hasn’t seen a drop of rain in 324 days.

Popular on Variety

Aaron’s drawn back to Kiewarra by the death of another childhood friend. It seems that Luke Hadler killed his wife and child before turning the gun on himself. The scenario is accepted by almost everyone in town and will strike a somber chord with local audiences in light of similar real-life tragedies in drought-devastated parts of Australia in recent times.

Determined to leave immediately following the funeral, Aaron’s convinced to stay when Luke’s distraught parents, Barb and Gerry (Julia Blake, Bruce Spence), implore him to examine aspects of the case that may clear their son’s name. After looking at Luke’s financial records and talking to honest but inexperienced local cop Greg Raco (Keir O’Donnell), Aaron gets the feeling that things may not be as clear-cut as they appear. Another reason to stay is re-connecting with Gretchen (Genevieve O’Reilly, excellent), the fourth member of Aaron’s tight-knit teenage friendship group and now a single mother with a checkered past.

The plot crackles along nicely with Aaron asking questions and uncovering dark secrets that suggest several townsfolk had the motive and means to commit murder. Already a juicy whodunit with a gallery of plausible suspects, “The Dry” acquires another layer of intrigue when Ellie’s embittered father Mal (William Zappa) and her spiteful cousin Grant (Matt Nable) ignite long-simmering community suspicion that Aaron killed Ellie all those years ago.

Artfully woven into the central story by editing aces Nick Meyers (“Sweet Country”) and Alexandre de Franceschi (“Lion”) are flashbacks to teenage Aaron’s (Joe Klocek) relationships with his domineering, alpha-male buddy Luke (Sam Corlett), sensitive soul Gretchen (Claude Scott-Mitchell) and the troubled Ellie. With a grainy picture quality resembling 16mm-to-35mm film blow-ups from yesteryear, these sequences deliver powerful emotion and simmering tension as divided loyalties come into play in the lead-up to Ellie’s tragic fate.

Bana anchors the smartly written drama wonderfully well. Imbuing his steely, no-nonsense character with just the right amount of insecurity and introspection, Bana ensures that audiences will be glued to everything Aaron Falk does and says. A uniformly splendid cast includes James Frecheville (“Animal Kingdom”) as evasive young farmer Jamie Sullivan, and Aussie actor-turned director John Polson (on screen for the first time since “Mission: Impossible 2”) as school principal Scott Whitlam.

As with Harper’s novel, the contradictory nature of Aussies embracing romantic visions of their vast continent while holding deep fears of its dry interior is never far from the surface here. Cinematographer Stefan Duscio (“The Invisible Man”) captures this conflict with stark widescreen images of Kiewarra’s arid brown present and its lush green past. The town’s declining fortunes and the weight upon Aaron’s shoulders is memorably visualized in scenes of him walking in the dry, cavernous bed of the once-magnificent river he swam in joyfully as a youth with Luke, Gretchen and Ellie.

Reviewed at Dendy Newtown Cinemas, Sydney, Dec. 21, 2020. Running time: 117 MIN.

• Production: (Australia) A Roadshow Films release of a Screen Australia presentation, in association with Film Victoria, of a Made Up Stories, Arenamedia, Pick Up Truck Films production. (Int'l sales: Cornerstone Films, London.) Producers: Bruna Papandrea, Steve Hutensky, Jodi Matterson, Robert Connolly, Eric Bana. Executive producers: Ricci Swart, Andrew Meyer, Meryl Metni, Jane Harper, Joel Pearlman, Jeanne Snow.
• Crew: Director: Robert Connolly. Screenplay: Connolly, Harry Cripps, based on the novel by Jane Harper. Camera: Stefan Duscio. Editors: Nick Meyers, Alexandre de Franceschi.
• With: Eric Bana, Genevieve O’Reilly, Keir O’Donnell, John Polson, Julia Blake, Bruce Spence, Matt Nable, William Zappa, James Frecheville, Joe Klocek, BeBe Bettencourt, Claude Scott-Mitchell, Sam Corlett, Miranda Tapsell, Daniel Frederiksen, Jeremy Lindsay Taylor, Eddie Baroo, Renee Lim, Martin Dingle Wall.
• Music By: Peter Raeburn

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‘The Dry’ Is a Mystery Full of Small-Town Secrets, Suspicions

By K. Austin Collins

K. Austin Collins

Robert Connolly’s new film, The Dry, is a mystery at heart: An investigation into a small-town murder-suicide that inevitably kicks up the dust of other peoples’ secrets and picks the scabs on barely-healed wounds. Yet for all its depiction of police procedure and the ins and outs of investigation, it’s this other stuff — much of it backstory — that radiates from the film’s center. The circumstances of the crime, specifically the secrets of the man who ostensibly committed it, bleed into matters of the heart, and of memory. And of a sense of guilt that far surpasses this crime in itself. Yet the resolution of that crime — the actual, substantive answer to the whodunit — is almost secondary. Petty, really. Whereas what cannot be resolved by such tragedies looms — nearly suffocates.

The movie, based on the 2016 bestseller by Jane Harper, stars Eric Bana as Aaron Falk, a federal police officer called back to his hometown of Kiewarra, in Australia ’s Western Victoria, by a stark, accusatory letter. “Luke lied. You lied. Be at the funeral.” Luke: Aaron’s childhood friend, now dead, apparently by his own hand. So are his wife and oldest child. Only an infant remains. Well — and that lie, that known unknown that drives Aaron back home and leaves the facade of his adult successes as cracked and parched as the water-sapped terrain of Kiewarra.

The Dry is set amid a long drought — a dry spell that has drawn on for nearly a year, leaving so many of the landmarks of Aaron and Luke’s youth, including the creek that was once the site of a death in which both men were implicated as teenagers, completely dry. The body of the now-dead Luke was found in what was once a pond, terrain now moistened only by the spattering of blood his body left behind.

Suffice it to say that it’s not easy to return to a town in which you are still broadly believed, by those who remember, to be a murderer. Not even if you’re now a federal officer. Aaron’s not even supposed to be investigating his old friend’s murder-suicide. But of course his one-night stay gets extended, then extended again, as the details don’t quite add up — and as the memories of that earlier mystery, of just what happened between him, Luke, their friend Gretchen (played, as an adult, by Genevieve O’Reilly), and their deceased friend Ellie flood back.

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The Dry is full of memories, suspicions, little rabbit holes of the mind, and at its most gripping, is all the more interesting for it. Connolly steeps the proceedings in a sense of climate both emotional and weathered; broad, suggestive shots of the land from the sky, and the dryness below, read like an emotional template. It’s all just kindling, laying in wait for the inevitable destructive spark.

What this means for the movie is, ultimately, the spilling out of many secrets — a few too many, really, for only but the most directly relevant revelations to carry much weight. Gambling, a secret gay romance, a paternity surprise — you almost need a full season of television for any of it to really offer the kick in the ass, the punch in the gut, that each of these threads deserves. But there are grace notes, largely among the actors. Bana and O’Reilly make their roles, which don’t always go to the most surprising of places, work well enough that they carry us through the movie on solid footing. Joe Klocek, as the young Aaron we see in flashbacks, is impressively vulnerable. Matt Nable makes for a good local antagonist. Keir O’Donnell, playing local cop Greg Raco, offers a believable mix of authority and inexperience — and even better, perhaps best of all, is Miranda Tapsell as Rita, Greg’s wife, who comes off as the sincere backbone of their growing family.

The Dry is solid and appreciably sad but, for all the virtues of its rough symbolism and intriguing backstory, almost too jampacked with discovery for its own good. On the other hand, for the “answer” to the truth of what happened to appear so small in the midst of secret dramas so overwhelming is a canny and effective choice, one that the movie nicely bears out. When the fire comes, as it must, the story hardly ends there. This makes sense — for these lives, and for the movie trying to capture them.

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‘The Dry’ Review: Eric Bana Stars in Australian Thriller About the Peril of Going Home Again

David ehrlich.

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A dusty, volatile little town in the middle of nowhere, this slice of Australia is going to burst into flames at any minute. That’s just a fact of life in this fictional place. The whole area around Kiewarra has been parched in a drought for at least the last 10 years, and 324 days have passed since the last drop of rain when the bodies are found at the Hadler house in what seems to be the first part of a murder-suicide.

Karen is lying flat in the front hallway from a shotgun blast to the chest, while her son Billy is dead in his room around the corner (Karen’s baby girl was mercifully spared). Luke Hadler’s corpse is found a ways down the road, and everyone assumes that he killed his wife and kids before offing himself. A lot of folks in Kiewarra still think Luke was responsible for the Deacon girl’s drowning 20 years ago, and that it was only a matter of time before he got violent again. But no one wanted to look into that too closely — life in the hinterlands is already hard enough. Now the river where she died has run dry, and the whole town finds itself surrounded by decades of buried tinder that could burn Kiewarra down to its bones from the tiniest spark.

Maybe that’s why Federal Agent Aaron Falk (a stoic and haunted Eric Bana ) looks so reluctant to leave his Melbourne high-rise and go back home to bury his childhood best friend. Aaron probably would’ve brushed the whole thing off if not for the postcard he received in the mail: “Luke lied. You lied. Be at the funeral.” Hard to say no to that.

Needless to say, Robert Connolly’s “ The Dry ” is a bit juicier than its title would suggest. Adapted from Jane Harper’s popular novel of the same name (it was a major pandemic-era hit down under when it welcomed Australians back to theaters on New Year’s Day), this arid murder-mystery is sunbaked in all manner of local flavor, but anyone drawn to the similar likes of “Top of the Lake” or “Mare of Easttown” should feel right at home.

That isn’t entirely to the advantage of a two-hour film that struggles to find time for its ghosts. Unevenly split between the killings that bring Aaron back to town and the one that inspired him to run away from home in the first place, Connolly and Harry Cripps’ screenplay doesn’t have the kindling it needs to melt hard evidence together with unresolved memories. The result is a raw but straightforward detective yarn that feels nagged by the past rather than bedeviled by it, when even a pinch of the spectral uncertainty that Peter Weir found down the road in “Picnic at Hanging Rock” would have made it easier to appreciate why Aaron’s childhood wounds still feel so fresh.

Nevertheless, “The Dry” is easy to sink into for a movie that’s as hard and dense as the scorched earth around Kiewarra. The salty opening stretches wrench a lot of mileage from the “fish out of water” energy that Aaron brings home with him, though the way his old neighbors try to ignore him at Luke’s funeral — where his suit makes it impossible to look at anyone else — suggests more of an “uninvited bee at a picnic” vibe. Luke’s parents are convinced their son didn’t kill his wife and kids, and see Aaron as their only hope of uncovering the truth.

At the same time, however, they seem to share the town’s suspicions that Luke was somehow involved in the death of Ellie Deacon 20 years earlier, which came at the end of a magical summer that she and her friend Genevieve spent making out with Luke and Aaron down at the lush green river that Kiewarra used to have. Flashbacks to those innocent days crop up from time to time, all of them kissed with the halcyon glow of uncertain youth. Young Ellie (an alluringly spacey BeBe Bettencourt) had her secrets, and Luke (Sam Corlett) was a dead ringer for River Phoenix before the land went dry, but all we really gather from these trips in the way-back machine is that Aaron genuinely doesn’t seem to know why his crush turned up dead one day.

Bana delivers a strong performance as an unsolved case unto himself, though the slow churn of this two-pronged whodunnit story keeps him penned in for much of the film’s runtime. He’s often seen behind a pane of glass, as if walled off from his past even as it bleeds into his present. Only a handful of moments allow Aaron to put down his detective’s hat — the most loaded of which find him rekindling a little something with Gretchen (Genevieve O’Reilly), who feels like the last woman standing. There’s a rich “what are we doing?” vibe to their romance that helps keep “The Dry” from growing drab as Aaron and local cop Greg Raco (Keir O’Donnell) question a parade of suspects who offer more in the way of desiccated atmosphere than compelling story detail (though it’s nice to see “Swimfan” director John Polson in front of the camera for the first time since “Mission: Impossible 2”). At one point, Ellie’s senile father snorts that he wouldn’t give someone “the steam from my piss.”

That line sticks with you almost as much as the character’s bitter forgetfulness, which seems like a blessing in disguise for someone living in a veritable tinderbox of dark secrets. Neither of the film’s central mysteries ever build much in the way of momentum, but they’re both carried along by a swell of deep sadness that crests in ways that are all the more wounding for their predictability. It hurts to see how the answers were right in front of Aaron’s face the whole time — part of an intergenerational pattern he couldn’t see once he left town and lost the thread. “People are really good at looking away” is how one Kiewarra native puts it, and no one is better at it than Aaron. The real mystery is whether he’ll be willing to let all of that pain burn away.

“The Dry” is now playing in theaters and available to rent on VOD.

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The Dry review: a bare-boned and honest portrayal of recovery

The complicated relationship between the Irish and alcohol has been given countless takes over the years.

So what new angle could this dramedy from the producers of Normal People possibly take? With its incredibly raw, frustrating and honest depiction of a woman fighting tooth and nail to remain on the wagon within an irreparably dysfunctional family dynamic, I found my answer.

The Dry begins at a wake. The Sheridans’ maternal grandmother has passed and Shiv (Roisin Gallagher) is returning to Dublin from London to pay her respects. Since no one appears to have remembered to pick her up from the airport, Shiv just about makes it to the wake in time – though not before a small confrontation with a local who appears to be on his second pint of Guinness by half past nine in the morning. “Are you ok?” Shiv asks, making a dangerously London-ified intrusion – to which the stranger responds, “Are you one of those f****n’ religious nuts?”

This sets the tone for Shiv’s continued attempts to stay sober during her extended stay in Dublin. Already considered the black sheep of the family due to her problems with alcohol, Shiv can neither please her family when drinking, nor when sober. A woman of extremes, she sticks out like a sore thumb between the cool as a cucumber baby of the family, Ant (Adam J. Richardson), and her uptight younger sister, Caroline (Siobhán Cullen).

Shiv is full of good intentions upon her return and is ready to prove that she has changed, but her family aren’t having any of it. Her Dad, Tom (Ciarán Hinds), is quietly supportive, though fails to speak up when it matters. Mum, Bernie (Pom Boyd), refuses to believe that Shiv is a different person, and her frustration with what she feels is her daughter’s imposed recovery builds to a boiling point.

Just as all the big Irish authors throughout history touched on alcohol addiction – Joyce did so in Dubliners, and Beckett was an alcoholic who treated the vice as a source of creativity – so too did they write of the need to escape Ireland to make a change. But Shiv’s recovery has the opposite effect, forcing uncomfortable truths to rise to the surface. Armed with her toolkit of London-derived “psychobabble” (as Bernie puts it), we watch as Shiv navigates and exposes the rifts within her family with self-destructive honesty.

My partner turned to me at the beginning of episode six, when Shiv can’t find her underwear, and declared with utter exasperation, “everyone in this show is a bad person.” I understood his frustration – it’s part of the point. But it speaks to the wonderfully complicated, powerful performances of everyone involved in The Dry.

Richardson’s Ant is wonderfully raw, while Cullen’s embodiment of Caroline oscillates perfectly between stiffness and vulnerability. Hinds’ portrayal of the still grief-stricken Tom, numb following the unexpected loss of his eldest child, is one of the more subtly emotional performances, and his scenes with Richardson in particular are truly powerful. A confrontation in the street between father and son over Ant’s feelings that he was never loved to the same degree as his late brother, Carl, is perhaps one of the show’s best scenes.

On the other hand, Gallagher’s Shiv is a wonderful hurricane of idiocy, destruction and self-advocacy – while her sponsor, Karen (Janet Moran), has some brilliant one-liners.

But it’s Bernie who proves the most searing voice. At one point she exasperatedly asks her daughter, “Are you sure this is the best place to get sober?” And yet Dublin acts as a crucible for the Sheridans – burning hot and explosive in order to reveal a purer, healing truth.

The Dry airs on ITVX from March 23

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• Cast & crew
• User reviews

Aaron Falk returns to his drought-stricken hometown to attend a tragic funeral. But his return opens a decades-old wound - the unsolved death of a teenage girl. Aaron Falk returns to his drought-stricken hometown to attend a tragic funeral. But his return opens a decades-old wound - the unsolved death of a teenage girl. Aaron Falk returns to his drought-stricken hometown to attend a tragic funeral. But his return opens a decades-old wound - the unsolved death of a teenage girl.

• Robert Connolly
• Harry Cripps
• Jane Harper
• Genevieve O'Reilly
• Keir O'Donnell
• 352 User reviews
• 91 Critic reviews
• 69 Metascore
• 6 wins & 17 nominations

Top cast 36

• Sgt. Greg Raco

• Scott Whitlam

• Jamie Sullivan

• Young Aaron Falk

• Ellie Deacon

• Young Gretchen

• Young Luke Hadler

• Sandra Whitlam
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• Trivia The song that Ellie sings when she, Aaron, Grant and Gretchen are sitting around a camp fire is 'Under The Milkyway' by The Church . It was a single from their 1988 album 'Starfish'.
• Goofs After tackling the burning man, Aaron is shown with various marks and bandages. His right ear is red from the flames, but his hair is completely untouched. It would have been severely singed.

Scott Whitlam : Suburbia in the country? Worst of both worlds.

• Connections Followed by Force of Nature: The Dry 2 (2024)
• Soundtracks Under the Milky Way Written by Steve Kilbey and Karin Jansson Published by Steve Kilbey Music/Music Sales Corporation by kind permission of The Music Sales Group/Administered by Universal Music Publishing Pty Ltd Performed by BeBe Bettencourt Piano by Brontë Horder Produced by Peter Raeburn

User reviews 352

• greenhouse3505
• Mar 31, 2021
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• May 21, 2021 (United States)
• United States
• United Kingdom
• Official site
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• Melbourne, Victoria, Australia (location)
• Made Up Stories
• Cornerstone Films
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• May 23, 2021
• $15,576,286

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• Runtime 1 hour 57 minutes
• Dolby Digital

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Slingshot review: casey affleck & laurence fishburne lead a small-scale sci-fi mindbender, jurassic world rebirth undoes previous movie in a massive way.

The Dry is a slow burn, meticulously crafted murder mystery set in the scorched landscape of a remote Australian town. Eric Bana delivers a brilliantly nuanced performance as a federal agent tormented by grief and suspicion. Adapted from the bestselling novel by Jane Harper, The Dry explores two devastating crimes separated by twenty years. Everyone is a suspect as dark secrets are laid bare in a harsh and unforgiving environment.

A horrifying murder-suicide shocks the small rural town of Kiewarra. Luke Hadler (Martin Dingle Wall) shoots his wife and school-age son before taking his own life in a dusty riverbed. He spares his infant daughter. Luke's childhood best friend, Aaron Falk ( Eric Bana ), a minor celebrity investigator in Melbourne, returns home after a long absence. The locals are not happy to see him. He reconnects with Luke's old girlfriend, Gretchen (Genevieve O'Reilly), as they try to come to terms with the tragedy. Luke's parents refuse to believe he was capable of such a crime. They beg Aaron to review the case headed by a kind, but novice policeman (Keir O'Donnell).

Aaron's homecoming forces him to remember another awful event in his youth. The film flashes back to Aaron as a teenager (Joe Klocek). While Luke and Gretchen were a couple, he was enamored with the beautiful Ellie Deacon (BeBe Bettencourt). The group swam and drank together in the desolate woods. As Aaron and Ellie's romance bloomed, he invited her on a river date. She never showed up, and was later found drowned. In the present, Aaron confronts deep-seated distrust as the killings reveal multiple sinister motives .

The Dry is an old-fashioned whodunnit with deliberative pacing. There are no gotcha moments or simplistic reveals. The tension simmers to a boil as the plot runs effectively through two timelines. We see how Ellie's murder has eaten away at Aaron's soul. He buried his feelings and memories of her, but must now face his past to solve the current puzzle. Eric Bana portrays Aaron with measured restraint. You can see the hurt in his eyes, but the character refuses to succumb to his own feelings. There's too much at stake for him to fall apart. Bana's subtle responses convey a torrent of exposition. He's tremendous here, a reminder of his significant talent and screen presence as a lead actor.

The cinematography and editing are instrumental in selling the miserable, drought-stricken setting. Every scene is a brownish yellow with intense overhead light. You can almost feel the oppressive heat and lack of moisture. Director/co-screenwriter Robert Connolly ( Deep State , The Turning ) focuses on barren farmland, dust devils wisping over cracked earth, and the smoke from distant fires lingering on the horizon. These scenes juxtapose the imagery of the teens swimming and kissing in literally fluid times. Ellie's death is a harbinger of the destitution to come.

The Dry does not disappoint in the final act. The intricate narrative never cuts corners. I thoroughly enjoyed the pacing and attention to details. The Dry requires patience, but follows the breadcrumbs to a satisfying and dramatic conclusion. The Dry is a production of Made Up Stories, Screen Australia, and Film Victoria. It will be released theatrically and on demand May 21st from IFC Films.

• Movie and TV Reviews

‘The Dry’ movie review: Eric Bana stars in drought-stricken Aussie crime drama

• March 31, 2021
• ★★★½ , Movie Reviews

A Melbourne detective returns to hometown in the bush following a tragedy in The Dry , a richly evocative and entirely engaging new Australian crime drama from director Robert Connolly set on the brink of the raging fires that destroyed much of the landscape in 2019-20.

Adapted from the Jane Harper novel by the director and Harry Crips ( Penguin Bloom ), The Dry stars Eric Bana as Aaron Falk, a now-prominent big city detective who returns to his drought-stricken outback hometown after childhood friend Luke (played by Sam Corlett in flashbacks) kills his wife and son, and then himself.

Of course, Luke’s parents (played by Bruce Spence and Julia Blake) don’t believe their son could have committed such an act, and implore Aaron to stick around and ‘have a look at the books’, a request he feels obliged to honor.

But for Aaron, the hometown return dredges up more old memories: of the murder of his childhood friend Ellie (BeBe Bettencourt), for which he was blamed and driven out of town. And for which Luke concocted an alibi to protect him… or was it the other way around?

As Aaron digs into the murder of Luke and his family alongside local rookie detective Greg (Keir O’Donnell), he sees ties to the old case: could Luke have killed Ellie, too? Or could Ellie’s father (William Zappa) and brother (Matt Nable), who still bear a grudge against Aaron, have something to do with the murder of Luke and his family?

There’s no shortage of other suspects, too, including Luke’s new neighbor Jamie (James Frecheville), who coincidentally gives police the same alibi that Luke had long ago invented for Aaron: that they were out shooting rabbits. And childhood friend Gretchen (Genevieve O’Reilly) also seems to be hiding something.

The Dry i s a thoroughly compelling and richly atmospheric drama that lays its pieces and suspects out on the table and slowly lets them settle into place as Aaron slowly connects the dots – real or imaginary – between the childhood trauma that changed the course of his life and the death of a friend that he can now help to solve.

Bana is excellent in The Dry ’s leading role, a man haunted by his past now compelled to right past wrongs, even if he digs up pain in the process.

Hollywood never really did Bana right after his breakthrough performance in Chopper , but he’s a commanding presence in his first Australian outing since 2007’s underrated Romulus, My Father . Here’s hoping The Dry marks the start of a big screen resurgence for the actor after his enigmatic portrayal of a vicious conman in TV’s Dirty John .

But one of The Dry ’s biggest strengths is its setting, a dried-up dustbowl where the presence of water is mostly a memory. Fires can be seen raging in the distance (filming took place in Victoria in mid-2019, just before bushfires ravaged the countryside) and the threat of flames igniting the tinderbox of a locale is employed during a memorable climax.

Cinematography by Stefan Duscio (last year’s The Invisible Man ) wonderfully captures the setting’s dry desperation, and generates noirish vibes from the sun-drenched white and sandy tones that fill the screen. Nostalgic scenes set at a river that no longer exists due to drought are richly evocative.

Timely, engrossing, and satisfying in almost every regard, The Dry has become one of the highest-grossing films in its native Australia since its release in December 2020, and looks poised for success in international markets ahead of a release this year.

• 2021 , BeBe Bettencourt , Bessie Holland , Bruce Spence , Claude Scott-Mitchell , Daniel Frederiksen , Eddie Baroo , Eric Bana , Francine McAsey , Genevieve O'Reilly , Harry Cripps , James Frecheville , Jane Harper , Jeremy Lindsay Taylor , Joe Klocek , John Polson , Julia Blake , Kameron Hood , Keir O'Donnell , Martin Dingle Wall , Matt Nable , Miranda Tapsell , Nick Farnell , Renee Lim , Robert Connolly , Sam Corlett , Samantha Strauss , The Dry , William Zappa

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Movie Review – The Dry (2021)

May 17, 2021 by Robert Kojder

The Dry , 2021.

Directed by Robert Connolly. Starring Eric Bana, Genevieve O’Reilly, Keir O’Donnell, John Polson, Matt Nable, Eddie Baroo, Martin Dingle Wall, Bruce Spence, BeBe Bettencourt, Jeremy Lindsay Taylor, Miranda Tapsell, Renee Lim, James Frecheville, William Zappa, Nick Farnell, Joe Klocek, Sam Corlett, Claude Scott-Mitchell, Bessie Holland, and Francine McAsey.

Aaron Falk returns to his drought-stricken hometown to attend a tragic funeral. But his return opens a decades-old wound – the unsolved death of a teenage girl.

Unsettling viewers to set the tone right from the start, The Dry opens with haunting imagery depicting the immediate aftermath of what appears to be a double murder-suicide. A woman lies in the front door hallway shot dead and bloodied, as does a young boy somewhere off-camera. The only sounds filling up this display of senseless violence are buzzing flies and the screams of an infant thankfully spared. As such, a mystery is established in the small town of Kiewarra, Australia, which appears to be in the middle of a two-year-long drought that has no ending in sight.

Based on Jane Harper’s novel of the same name and co-written and directed by Robert Connolly (collaborating on the screenplay with Harry Cripps and Samantha Strauss), this is a rather complex whodunnit that encompasses two separate deaths 20 years apart that may or may not share a connection. Leading the investigation is Aaron Falk (Eric Bana, returning to film strongly with arguably one of his best performances here), a federal agent summoned back to the dusty town harboring dark secrets since he was once best friends with Luke, the man accused of gunning down his wife and young son before taking his own life. Kiewarra doesn’t take too kindly to Aaron’s return as his original exit all those years ago was clouded with suspicion of a different murder, and perhaps more damning, a murder that Luke either also carried out himself or one he helped his friend to get away with by working together on an alibi.

Two individuals are welcoming to Aaron’s reemergence, and they would be the parents of Luke, who steadfast believe their son is not capable of murder and that something else must have been going on. After some pleading and persuasion, Aaron decides to get a hotel room and team up with local deputy Greg Raco (Keir O’Donnell). At this point, we get some procedural interviews and a critical assessment of various clues gathered. Flashbacks are also perfectly peppered into the narrative from Aaron’s perspective; memories of a troubled young woman named Ellie that was tragically found drowned after planning to meet up with him at the lake, a spot gradually picking up sentimental value the closer they became.

What ensues is a double investigation exploring a town of many secrets, lies, guilt, and shame. Nearly every character feels responsible in some way for the death of Ellie, but it seems they haven’t necessarily learned any lessons from that tragedy and are right back in the same situation with the loss of Karen. Intriguingly, The Dry sometimes feels less concerned with a straightforward and clear-cut uncovering of either killer’s identity (maybe they aren’t even the same person and the cases are less connected than they appear to be), wisely honing in on the psychological evaluation of cyclical tragedy and how these townspeople have allowed such a bleakness to repeat. It’s the rare murder mystery that’s presented so compellingly with a vast array of complicated characters that it wouldn’t necessarily be a bummer if there are no black-and-white answers to be found.

What I will say is that one major reveal notwithstanding, The Dry remains tricky to pin down and character-focused. And while it feels like there could be a bit more depth and exploration behind one of its surprises, the road it leads both characters and viewers down is emotionally gripping and harrowing. Coupled with gorgeous landscape shots from cinematographer Stefan Duscio conveying the loneliness and compositions evoking that the town swallows up its residents, leaving them unable to escape, The Dry matches the somber, suspenseful, and reflective tone with striking imagery. The quietness and subtlety of Eric Bana’s performance suggest the reality of this town that even the kindest characters have a dirty little secret. All of those revelations pack a punch.

Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★

Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check  here  for new reviews, follow my  Twitter  or  Letterboxd , or email me at [email protected]

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Force of Nature: The Dry 2

One of the pleasures of being a critic is getting assigned to review a film you might not otherwise have seen. 2021’s “ The Dry ” was one of those, a taut moody drama/thriller based on Jane Harper’s best-selling novel (the first in a series). It starred Eric Bana as Melbourne cop Aaron Falk who returned to his hometown and is drawn into a world of mysteries and secrets. Unfortunately, “Force of Nature: The Dry 2,” based on the second book in Harper’s “Aaron Falk” series, also directed by Connolly, doesn’t grasp its own complexities and fails to connect with its own story. “The Dry 2” in the title is misleading, as it isn’t a sequel. It’s a stand-alone, with Aaron as the common character. The film is well-made and well-acted, but it merely suggests depth rather than actually having it.

The premise has a lot of potential. Five women go on a corporate retreat where they have to hike through a rainforest in order to build teamwork and be more effective in the workplace (or something like that). Only four women emerge from the rainforest. Everyone has a different story about the disastrous hike, and they are all cagey about what might have happened to their missing co-worker. Melbourne cop Aaron Falk arrives on the scene to investigate with his partner Carmen ( Jacqueline McKenzie ). Aaron has a connection with the ‘case’ on a couple of levels, one professional and one personal.

The most obvious reference point is another Australian film, Peter Weir’s “ Picnic at Hanging Rock ,” where two girls and their teacher disappear during a picnic, leaving no traces behind. Margaret Atwood’s haunting 1989 story “Death by Landscape” tells a similar tale. “Death by landscape” is a good way to describe these narratives, where the surroundings are so evocative, either visually or poetically and symbolically, that they swallow people whole. The landscape in “The Dry” was parched and serene. The landscape in “ Force of Nature ” is dense, wet, and green. Both landscapes make huge demands on the human beings unfortunate enough to step into them.  Andrew Commis’ cinematography captures therainforest in all its vastness and confusion.

“Force of Nature” features five great female characters, and the cast is excellent. Jill ( Deborra-Lee Furness ) is the leader, is high-ranked in the company, and is married to the founder. Beth ( Sisi Stringer ) and Bree ( Lucy Ansell ) are sisters, and Lauren ( Robin McLeavy ) is Alice’s sister (if I’m not mistaken. It wasn’t clearly established). Having two sets of sisters working at the same company is a stretch, but never mind. The hot-tempered Alice ( Anna Torv ) is the flashpoint for the group. Nobody likes her. When the women take a wrong turn and get hopelessly lost, they are so busy blaming one another and fighting over what to do next that they lose precious time. These sequences are gripping, especially because of the “Picnic at Hanging Rock” echo: What happened to Alice? Where did she go?

The women on the retreat would be enough for one movie, but “Force of Nature” piles on more. Aaron and his partner (the insanely under-used Jacqueline McKenzie) have been investigating this company for financial crimes and recruited Alice as an insider informer. Nobody knows she’s been double-dealing, but Aaron suspects foul play. There’s more. When Aaron was a child, his mother disappeared during a family hike in the same rainforest. He’s constantly drifting off into his own personal flashback while poor Alice is still lost out there somewhere! The structure runs on three tracks. We see Aaron and Carmen questioning the four women. We go into flashbacks of the hike itself. We go further back to kid Aaron ( Archie Thomson ) and his parents (Jeremy Lindsey Taylor, Ash Ricardo ) on their hike. (Meanwhile, there was no mention in “The Dry” of Aaron’s mother disappearing, even though this would be a world-shaking character-defining event.)  These timelines keep interrupting each other, making mincemeat of momentum, and, opposite to the film’s intent, distancing emotional involvement.

“The Dry” handled a similar structure beautifully: Aaron is dogged by memories of the past and distracted by present reality. It was a personal journey and an effective murder mystery simultaneously. “Force of Nature” gets a lot of mileage from  What happened to Alice? and the actors add to the mystery. Each character has a plausible motive for wanting to get rid of Alice. Whodunit? The suspense could have carried the film through to the end; if only there weren’t all this other stuff dragging it down.

Sheila O'Malley

Sheila O’Malley received a BFA in Theatre from the University of Rhode Island and a Master’s in Acting from the Actors Studio MFA Program. Read her answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

• Eric Bana as Aaron Falk
• Anna Torv as Alice
• Deborra-Lee Furness as Jill Bailey
• Robin McLeavy as Robin
• Sisi Stringer as Beth
• Richard Roxburgh as Daniel Bailey
• Robert Connolly

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Common Sense Media Review

Slow but solid Aussie crime drama has blood, language.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that The Dry is an Australian crime drama based on a novel by Jane Harper. It follows a police officer with a past (Eric Bana) who's investigating a potential murder-suicide in his hometown during a drought. Violence includes a gory crime scene (with dead bodies and blood), characters…

Why Age 15+?

Plot involves investigation of potential murder-suicide. Characters are shot. Bl

Several uses of "f--k," "s--t," "bulls--t," "a--hole," "ass," "hell," "d--khead,

Kissing in more than one scene. Two characters touch hands; dialogue about how t

Main character drinks beer in a bar. Beer and wine with dinner. Other social dri

Any Positive Content?

It's about covered-up secrets and crimes. Motivations seem to be more personal t

Aaron Falk is brave and determined but seems to be helping more out of guilt and

Violence & Scariness

Plot involves investigation of potential murder-suicide. Characters are shot. Bloody crime scene; dead bodies. Corpse of teenager pulled from creek. Character tries to light himself on fire. Characters shoot a rifle at rabbits. Fight in a bar, with punching and a bloody face. Dead calf draped over car and later left on front porch (as warning). Violent dialogue: "I was held at knifepoint," etc.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Several uses of "f--k," "s--t," "bulls--t," "a--hole," "ass," "hell," "d--khead," "pr--k," "pissed," "shut up," "masturbatory," and "idiot," plus "oh my God," "Jesus," and "Christ" (used as exclamations).

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Kissing in more than one scene. Two characters touch hands; dialogue about how they "went to bed."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Main character drinks beer in a bar. Beer and wine with dinner. Other social drinking.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Positive Messages

It's about covered-up secrets and crimes. Motivations seem to be more personal than about helping others or the common good. Movie is set during a drought but doesn't really take opportunity to address climate crisis.

Positive Role Models

Aaron Falk is brave and determined but seems to be helping more out of guilt and personal hope for redemption than because he's a good person.

Parents need to know that The Dry is an Australian crime drama based on a novel by Jane Harper. It follows a police officer with a past ( Eric Bana ) who's investigating a potential murder-suicide in his hometown during a drought. Violence includes a gory crime scene (with dead bodies and blood), characters getting shot, a dead girl's body being pulled from a creek, a person attempting to light himself on fire, dead animals and animals getting shot, fighting and punching, and more. Language is also strong, with several uses of "f--k," "s--t," and other words. People kiss, and there's the suggestion of a secret, possibly taboo, romance. Characters drink beer and wine in bars, at dinner, and in other social settings. The plot is thick, and the movie is a little stiff and slow, but it's still solid and smart. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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What's the Story?

In THE DRY, Australian Federal Police officer Aaron Falk ( Eric Bana ) gets word that he must return home to his drought-ridden small town of Kiewarra for a funeral: Aaron's childhood friend, Luke, Luke's wife, and their child are the victims of a potential murder-suicide. Aaron himself is quite unpopular in Kiewarra due to his tentative connection with the drowning of a young woman decades earlier. He reconnects with another friend, Gretchen ( Genevieve O'Reilly ), and meets with Luke's parents ( Bruce Spence and Julia Blake ), who are convinced that Luke couldn't have done such a horrible thing. They plead with Aaron to stick around and look further into the case, which they think involves the family farm. He joins forces with local cop Greg Raco ( Keir O'Donnell ) and starts looking into the mystery, which begins to take some very unexpected turns.

Is It Any Good?

Perhaps hampered by the task of adapting Jane Harper's source novel, this languid crime drama isn't as taut or dynamic as it might have been, but it's still a well-acted, vivid piece of storytelling. Directed by Robert Connolly , The Dry relies heavily on character history to help thicken its story, but the frequent flashbacks to earlier days -- with younger actors playing some of the characters -- can be confusing; it takes a while to establish who's supposed to be who. Once in the present, however, the movie is allowed to wander into interesting gray areas.

As Falk, Bana doesn't get to show much emotion -- his character has to be on guard -- but he manages a neatly nuanced performance as a man carrying pain and guilt and operating out of obligation and a vain hope at redemption. Especially interesting is the relationship between Falk and Raco, which evolves as each man learns more about the other. The same occurs with Gretchen; what might have been a tacked-on romance turns into more character substance. Not much is done with the movie's drought theme, other than a shot of Falk being perturbed at not being able to take a shower, but the murder mystery and the movie's conclusion are better than average, making The Dry a quenching experience.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about The Dry' s violence . How much is shown? How much is threatened? What impact did it have?

A character says, "when you've been lying about something so long, it becomes second nature." What does this mean? Can lying be more difficult to maintain than the truth?

How do the people of Kiewarra treat Aaron? How can so many people form an opinion of someone without knowing the facts?

How does the drought figure into the story? What does the movie have to say about the issue of climate change?

Movie Details

• In theaters : May 21, 2021
• On DVD or streaming : January 18, 2022
• Cast : Eric Bana , Genevieve O'Reilly , Keir O'Donnell
• Director : Robert Connolly
• Inclusion Information : Female actors
• Studio : IFC Films
• Genre : Drama
• Topics : Book Characters
• Run time : 117 minutes
• MPAA rating : R
• MPAA explanation : violence, and language throughout
• Last updated : July 2, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Dry’ on VOD, a Sturdy Australian Crime-Melodrama Anchored by Eric Bana

Where to stream:, 'love lies bleeding' is secretly the best hulk movie so far, 'madame web' brings superhero movies back to the 'daredevil' days of 2003, stream it or skip it: 'back to the outback' on netflix, a talking-animal cartoon rife with all the usual comedy and adventure, 7 things you didn't know about 'dirty john', as explained by debra newell herself.

Before its U.S. VOD debut, The Dry enjoyed the strongest theatrical opening for an Australian indie ever. The Eric Bana-anchored crime-drama maybe has its source material to thank for that; the 2016 British novel it’s based on sold a million copies internationally, stacking up awards and launching author Jane Harper’s career as a mystery writer. The movie is set in a fictional small town suffering through a horrid drought and the traumatic fallout of a grisly homicide; here’s hoping the story isn’t as dry as its setting.

THE DRY : STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: In Kiewarra, it hasn’t rained for 324 days. The ground is parched and cracked, a devastating state for a small farming community. Inside a home on a stretch of arid land, a wall is splattered with blood. One body is in the hall, another in a closet. A baby wails from its crib. Cut to Aaron Falk (Bana), an Australian Federal Police detective who leaves his badge behind for his first visit to Kiewarra in three decades, to attend the funeral. There was a third body out in the field, his old friend Luke, who the papers say killed his wife and son before taking his own life. Aaron walks into the church and sees three coffins. Curious. Attendees gasp as the sermon begins to memorialize the victims and the apparent killer.

That’s the doing of Luke’s parents. They don’t believe the murder-suicide story adds up. Are they on to something, or in denial? Hard to tell, but Aaron is a big-time detective, nationally famous for the cases he worked. They urge him to look into it, and he resists, but soon relents, for reasons that blur the personal and professional. Aaron has his own weighty baggage — he flashes back to scenes from his teenage life, when he (Joe Klocek) and Luke (Sam Corlett) cavorted at the local watering hole with two girls, one of whom, Ellie (BeBe Bettencourt), drowned in the spot. He remembers Luke roughhousing with Ellie and Gretchen (Claude Scott-Mitchell), holding their heads under the water. He remembers the day he and Ellie kissed passionately, alone in the woods. He remembers seeing her lifeless body pulled from the water as her father wailed shoreside. He remembers Luke asking him to say the two of them were hunting rabbits when Ellie died, even though they weren’t. He remembers.

Aaron’s return isn’t greeted kindly. Some locals believe he had something to do with Ellie’s death. Ellie’s father Mal (William Zappa) curses him; Luke’s neighboring farmer, Grant (Matt Dow), is openly hostile. Gretchen (Genevieve O’Reilly) greets him warmly, flirtatiously. The cop on the murder case, Greg (Keir O’Donnell), is shaken — everyone in tight-knit Kiewarra is — and perhaps a touch intimidated by Aaron, but he’s not done investigating, and welcomes the help. They shake down another farmer, talk to the local doctor, consult the school principal. Maybe the complete picture is coming into focus. Meanwhile, new and old tragedies mingle, both unsolved, both involving Aaron, who sure seems crisp and put-together on the outside. On the inside, though, it’s a different story.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: I was reminded of the first season of Top of the Lake , the New Zealand-set series in which Elisabeth Moss plays a detective uncovering secrets — and sometimes being too close to conflicts of interest for comfort — in a small community after a girl’s disappearance.

Performance Worth Watching: Bana does the buttoned-up thing really well, playing the guy who doesn’t look like he gets rattled even when he’s rattled. The onus of the story is put on his shoulders; the screenplay doesn’t give much conspicuous detail to Aaron, leaving Bana plenty of room to explore the character nonverbally. No surprise, he’s up to the task.

Memorable Dialogue: “You think you’re gonna get the truth in a town like this?” — Farmer Jamie (James Frecheville) knows Kiewarra all too well

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: Old friends. Old traumas. New tragedies. All are inextricably tangled in The Dry , and is this how one would write promo copy for a movie? It’s at least a pretty good movie, a sturdy, melodramatic mystery that teeters on the precipice of Maudlin Gorge and is thirsty for even a touch of levity, but nonetheless sets its hook competently and keeps us engrossed for two hours. Bana makes us care just enough about the state of Detective Aaron’s psychotherapeutic status so it’s more than just a get-to-the-reveal whodunit. I was most compelled by the state of Aaron’s head, whether he’s all twisted around by his closeness to the subject, or the straight arrow cutting through the brush that Kiewarra so desperately needs.

Director Robert Connolly manipulates us just enough to make us wonder if the plot is one of those deep wallows in bleak some-things-are-just-never-resolved uncertainty that can be as unforgiving as the dust-choked setting. But it’s not, and the film’s relative popularity likely speaks to that. Connolly neatly intertwines the parallel mysteries occurring currently and in 1991, building tension to a climax that’s, well, a touch too predictable, and stumbles mightily in its overwrought slo-mo cornball indulgence. There’s enough meat on the bones here to make up for such missteps, though, enough to inspire investment in the characters and story, and make us feel something in the end. Not all movies can pull that off, remember.

Our Call: STREAM IT. As a local-boy-done-good-comes-home redemption story, The Dry avoids most cliches, and as an old-fashioned good yarn, it keeps our eyes on the screen.

Should you stream or skip the sturdy Eric Bana Australian crime-melodrama #TheDry on VOD? #SIOSI — Decider (@decider) May 21, 2021

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba .

Where to watch The Dry

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‘The Dry’ Summary & Ending, Explained – Keeps The Thrill Maintained

Every film tries to harvest mini sub-plots along with a significant plot at the centre of the story. However, most movies fail to balance these mini-quests of the protagonist. Sometimes subplots become too heavy, blinding the main quest of the protagonist, and sometimes they are too weak that their presence doesn’t make a difference. But  The Dry , directed by  Robert Connolly , incorporates each layer in a notable proportion.

The Dry is an Australian thriller drama based on Jane Harper’s book of the same name. The film exceptionally pictures the drought-stricken Australian town where the events happen. The cracked lands and parched souls are the film’s highlight.

‘The Dry’ Summary

Australian Federal Agent Aaron Falk ( Eric Bana ) returns to his hometown, Kiewarra, Regional Australia, to attend the funeral of his childhood friend, Luke Hadler. Luke killed himself after killing his wife, Karen, and young son, leaving behind only his baby daughter, Charlotte. Aaron is requested and threatened by Luke’s father to visit the funeral. He sends Aaron a letter that connects Luke’s and Aaron’s erring past.

In a drought-stricken Kiewarra, Luke’s parents suspect that the incident could be a possible murder and urges Aaron to investigate further. When Aaron shows his disinterest, Luke’s father threatens him again for the murder of a teenage girl, Eleanor “Ellie” Deacon, who was linked to Aaron in his college years. For the same matter, the whole town calls Aaron, the killer and he is unwelcomed by the majority.

However, looking at the savageness of the town’s people, Aaron suspects that they could have killed or forced Luke for a possible suicide, and therefore he stays back. With the help of the local sergeant, Greg Raco ( Keir O’Donnell ), he commences an investigation towards all the likely suspects who could be linked to Luke’s murder. While running the investigation, Aaron also tries to make peace with his past that link him to Ellie’s suicide/murder.

Major Spoilers Ahead

‘The Dry’ Ending Explained

While in town, Aaron suspects every person, but that’s the nature of his job. However, the town doesn’t receive it well and tries to humiliate him.

Through his college friend and Luke’s ex-girlfriend, Gretchen ( Genevieve O’Reilly ), Aaron finds out that Luke’s wife Karen struggled to fund the town’s school where she worked with Gretchen. Ignoring the facts initially, Aaron instead suspects Gretchen of killing Luke and his family due to hatred or a possibly unrequited love story. He also claims that Luke was the father to Gretchen’s son Lachlan.

Distraught and helpless, Aaron couldn’t find any worthy links to the murder. All he had, was a library receipt on which Karen wrote the word, “Grant.” He suspects Ellie’s brother, whose name is Grant Dow, but he has a substantial alibi. However, a poker machine in his hotel rings a bell. He steals the funding papers from Gretchen’s house and finds out that the school was sanctioned 70 Grand, which never showed up.

Aaron connects the dot that leads up to a single man, school principal Scott Whitlam. He had a gambling problem and owed big money to people in Melbourne. To protect his family, Scott shifted to Kiewarra, but the men came looking for him and threatened him to clear his debt. Scott paid them out of school funding money, about which Karen found out. To keep things secret, Scott murdered her family. The Remington’s bullet through which Luke and his family were murdered was found in the school’s shed.

Aaron and Greg tried to arrest Scott, but he poured Gasoline on himself and threatened to burn the forest. A possible forest fire could bring wrath upon the whole town in a drought-stricken town, maybe, more. Aaron and Greg put their life at stake to stop Scott’s burning body from hitting the ground. Finally, Aaron redeems himself and becomes a hero for the town.

But the death of Ellie is still a mystery. In his last visit to the jungle, Aaron finds Ellie’s bag hidden between the rocks, where they kissed for the first time. Inside the bag, Aaron finds Ellie’s diary in which she wrote about her father’s assaults. A possible sexual assault.

Ellie ran away from home to save herself from brutality, but her father, Mal Deacon, found out. Ellie came into the forest to meet Aaron for the last time before leaving when Mal pushed her into the river, causing her death.

Aaron leaves the town with Ellie’s memory (backpack). He walks along the riverbed, which looks completely “dry.”

It’s a mesmerizing drama that keeps you invested too. The subplots are precisely submerged in the story. They don’t feel like a hindrance towards the primary pursuit, yet their impact is felt at regular intervals. For example, Aaron’s past had little to do with Luke’s murder, yet the narrative keeps on hinting that the past could be a motive in the actual turn of events. Through a single narrative, the writer explores two hidden mysteries, Luke’s murder and Ellie’s death. The credit goes to Jane Harper’s brilliant writing in the original novel.

Director Robert Connolly has splendidly used the background of a drought-stricken town. The cause of prolonged dry spell is equally visible in ambience and his character’s personality. The title signifies not only the dried uplands but also the dried hearts of people. Cinematographer Stefan Duscio has perfectly captured the subtext his director wanted to portray in the film.

Munich star Eric Bana has performed exceptionally. He is a hidden gem, and I am amused we don’t see him much in Hollywood. He is a talent that needs to be recognized further.

The Dry is a 2021 Australian drama thriller film directed by Robert Connolly.

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