Film Review - The Dry (2020)

The Dry is based off of the novel and stars Eric Bana as Aaron Falk a Federal Police detective who returns to his hometown of Kiewarra in Country Victoria for the funeral of his childhood friend Luke who along with his wife and son were murdered in an apparent murder suicide but Aaron has his own demons in the town relating to the apparent suicide of his childhood friend Ellie many years earlier.

 

The Dry I had been keen to see based off of the great trailer and it certainly did not disappoint as a movie as this was a thoroughly enjoyable murder mystery story and first off the cinematography by Stefan Duscio is quite good with its pale browns showing off how much the drought has affected this small country town which is also close to a bushfire area as well.

 

Secondly the mystery itself unfolds in a very neat way with a great use of flashbacks to show Aaron and his friends along with other people in the town when it comes to the murder cases being solved and explored in the film, the flashback scenes have this nice grainy feel to them like 35mm film from that era and it looks great on a big screen while the new scenes have that digital feel but also how much the events of the past and the events of the here and now as Luke and his family are laid to rest come back to haunt the townspeople.

 

And lastly Eric Bana is just so so good here, effortlessly charming and charismatic while also showing a real vulnerability in some scenes it just makes him not only the perfect anchor for this story but also why he hasn’t had as many good roles like this as this is the best I’ve seen him be in a movie in a very very long time and so many of the roles he’s done now feel like a total waste of his talent as he clearly can be a great, charming leading man with a laid back air to him that makes him totally relatable and boy has it been way too long.

 

And so that was the Dry which is a thoroughly enjoyable mystery tale set in drought stricken regional Victoria and one that I cannot recommend highly enough, 4 and a half out of 5.