'The Girl in the River' Review
- Andrew Auger
- 10 hours ago
- 3 min read
Release Date: 09/04/26 [Cinemas / Digital]
Genre: Crime. Drama. Mystery. Thriller.
MPAA: Not Rated.
Distributor: Samuel Goldwyn Films.
The Verdict: A Mistake
In a watching culture that has become increasingly obsessed with true crime, the crime thriller is usually a reliably popular genre. Who knows if The Girl in the River will be given enough of a platform to break out in any way, but one could see this being put on Netflix in a few years and randomly catching fire. It has a lot of the elements you want from these movies--tortured cops bickering with each other, a sweltering hot Southern town, and young kids in mortal peril. Many classics have had bits and pieces of this exact formula — True Detective, Mississippi Burning, Seven. Just because the formula exists doesn’t mean it will automatically work, however, and The Girl in the River is unfortunately not very good.
The Girl in the River starts with exactly that--the body of a dead young girl, fished out of the Mississippi River. Her sister is still missing, putting a ton of pressure on police captain Erica Graysmith (Tiffany Haddish) to solve the case. Criminologist Amelia Pembrock (Maggie Grace) has a ton of booksmarts, but this is a daunting first case in the field. She’s paired up with Detective Alan Kramer (Devon Sawa), who has dealt with plenty of tragedy in his life both on and off the job. His drinking problem dulls Kramer’s instincts, and he's tortured by something from his past. Between his slurring and Amelia’s inexperience, there are plenty of obstacles to slow them from solving the case.
This is the feature debut of writer/director Brando Benetton, who has clearly seen plenty of cop dramas and serial killer thrillers. There is a very network TV quality to the interactions between Pembrock and Kramer. The “opposites forced into attraction” trope is given plenty of play here, as Kramer challenges Pembrock to look beyond the obvious solutions that she may gather and see the bigger picture. As pressure from the town closes in, particularly from a grief-stricken mother and father (Angelina Swords and Andrew Stevens), Amelia starts to circle a prime suspect, a local butcher with a sketchy past when it comes to dealing with women. Everything seems to be cut and dry, a case right out of the textbook. But is it ever really that simple?
Grace does an acceptable Clarice Starling impression and makes the most of a character who is mostly just an iteration of the green-but-brilliant rookie officer. Same goes for Sawa, who has the look of a haunted and rugged cop but doesn’t do much to make us feel that baggage. As has been the case with many of her attempts at dramatic roles, Haddish mostly feels miscast, failing to convey the strength and stress of her office. The same can be said for Ralph Macchio, as the Karate Kid himself gives a plain, somewhat distracting performance as the town coroner.
Anyone who has seen a number of these movies can figure out where The Girl in the River is headed. There’s a pretty small list of suspects, and those who know the rhythms can figure out the misdirects and red herrings with little trouble. At a crisp 90 minutes, the film itself doesn’t even really try to drag out too many alternate theories, which is somewhat refreshing yet mostly frustrating. The script could’ve been plucked from dozens of other movies of the genre, particularly when you listen to some of the dialogue.
There really isn’t much interest in doing anything different from the formula, which means that The Girl in the River works as a background watch but little more than that. Benetton shows a steady hand that might benefit him in a career as a television director, but that competence translates to blandness when you have a script this flat. The only time I felt anything beyond general apathy was in select moments of confusion, particularly when the film ends with an on-screen epilogue text that seems to imply this was a true story — which I don’t think is true. The Girl in the River doesn’t quite drown, but it certainly doesn’t float to the top.
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