THE DRY : Thursday 4th February 2021.

'THE DRY' which I finally got to see at the Open Air Cinema on Sydney Harbour this week is an MA15+ Rated Australian mystery drama thriller film Directed by Robert Connelly whose previous film making credits take in 'The Bank', 'Three Dollars', 'Balibo', 'The Turning' and 'Paper Planes'. This film is based on the multi-award winning 2016 best selling debut novel by Australian author Jane Harper. Originally set for a late August release last year, the film was pushed back to a New Year's Day release 2021 due to the ongoing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since being released five weeks ago now in Australia and New Zealand the film has grossed AU$12M, and has garnered wide spread critical acclaim. 

Melbourne based Federal Agent Aaron Falk (Eric Bana, who also Co-Produces here) returns to his struggling farming community of Kiewarra in regional Victoria after an absence of over twenty years to attend the funeral of his childhood friend, Luke Hadler (Martin Dingle Wall), who allegedly killed his wife Karen and child Billy before taking his own life after sparring the life of baby Charlotte. It seems that he was the victim of the madness that has ravaged this community after more than a decade of drought. At the films opening it states that the community has not seen a single drop of rain in 324 days. Following the funeral and the wake, Aaron visits the grieving parents of Luke - father Gerry (Bruce Spence) and mother Barb (Julia Blake), who ask that he stays back and investigates the alleged murder suicide, because they don't believe that their son was capable of such a heinous act. Aaron agrees to stay back one day and look over the books of the farm that Luke owned. 

Aaron is harassed by a certain contingent of the townspeople, who remember the now twenty-year-old death of seventeen-year-old Ellie Deacon (BeBe Bettencourt), a close friend of his during his school days that he was romantically involved with. Aaron (Joe Klocek) was immediately suspected for the death, as he'd given her a note that day asking her to meet him at the river, only for her not to show and to be found later by her father and Police, drowned in the river. Aaron always maintained this innocence and made up a story with Luke (Sam Corlett) that the pair were out in a nearby field shooting rabbits as their alibi, which few of the townspeople believed. Aaron and his father Erik (Jeremy Lindsay Taylor) had been subsequently forced to leave town to avoid harassment from Ellie's ruthless father Mal (William Zappa).

Aaron meets with the local sergeant Greg Raco (Keir O'Donnell), and the pair begin to look into the circumstances surrounding the deaths that may have bene overlooked by the Police in the days immediately following. They discover that the shotgun cartridges used in the crime were red cased Winchesters while Luke only owned blue cased Remmingtons, indicating that the killer used different ammunition to what the family owned. 

Aaron interviews Scott Whitlam (John Polson), the Principal of the local school and Karen's boss, who explains that although she was struggling to gather government funding for the school, she didn't seem to have any problems on the home front. After visiting Luke's mother again, who was clearing out all of his belongings, she comes across a whole bunch of library books which had long since expired. He also reveals that his investigation into the farms set of accounts flagged nothing of any consequence. Aaron offers to return the books to the library and in so doing discovers the word 'grant ?' written on the back of the library receipt, leading him to suspect that Ellie's cousin, Grant Dow (Matt Nable), wants to purchase the family's farm which is directly adjacent to his own, once it goes on the market due to Luke's parents being unable to keep it, and with another neighbouring farm likely to come up for sale in the future such a large landholding of three farms sold together makes for a very lucrative proposition for any developer. Dow denies this, although he and his father still hold a big grudge toward Aaron.

Aaron visits Gretchen (Genevieve O'Reilly), another childhood friend and a co-worker of Karens. On her dining table she has sprawled out a bunch of documents that are applications for school funding. While looking through an old photo album, Aaron discovers that Luke could be the father of Gretchen's only child Lachlan. When Aaron confronts Gretchen with this revelation, she is mortified and orders him to get out of her house. Aaron returns to the house early the next morning while Gretchen and Lachlan are sleeping, sneaks in and takes a number of the documents. He soon realises that Karen's writing of 'grant ?' referred to government funds being granted, not Grant Dow, now suspecting Whitlam of financial fraud to the tune of AU$70K.

Aaron and Raco go to question Whitlam at the school, only to find he has fled to the bush upon which the school backs. Catching up with him, Whitlam admits to his gambling addiction, stealing money from the school to pay back his debts, and that he murdered the family to cover up his fraud. Whitlam drenches himself in petrol and sets alight to himself. Aaron and Raco tackle the burning Whitlam to the ground and put out the fire themselves, both getting burned in the process but stopping it from spreading to the trees and sparking a bushfire which could have potentially engulfed the nearby school. Aaron wakes up sometime later in hospital with his arms and hand bandaged. He visits Raco in the next room who is more badly burnt but will make a full recovery. Asking about Whitlam, Raco's wife responds that he was taken to a Melbourne hospital and that he is unrecognisable. The investigation is closed, clearing Luke of any wrong doing. 

On his way out of town, Aaron stops to lay a dried floral arrangement at a rocky area that he and Ellie used to frequent twenty years ago. He uncovers her old backpack while laying the arrangement, which contains a journal noting that her father was abusing her, and her mother which is why her Mum left. Ellie recorded in her journal that there was no way her father would ever let her leave, so the only way out for her was to take her own life. Flashbacks indicate that her father got to her before she was able to end her own life and as a result drowned and killed her himself. Aaron walks back with the backpack along the riverbed, now completely dried out.

'The Dry' is an expertly crafted film that takes you into the very heart and soul of the Australian sun drenched land in a fictitious outback town ravaged by drought and captured in sweeping mid and long distance shots of this arid community. Of course that is backed up by tight, tense and tough performances by the principle cast who are all on top form here including the four younger teenage characters portrayed in flashbacks throughout the film to their present day adult selves. Bana shines in the role as the insecure and introspective Aaron Falk with a dark secret all of his own, that keeps his performance grounded and beleiveable, and will keep you hanging on every line of dialogue he mutters, and every action he takes. The film easily boasts enough red herrings, plot twists and turns, intrigue and emotion to maintain the interest of any die hard fan of murder mystery cinema, and my only hope is that this film finds an audience overseas beyond its native Australia.

'The Dry' merits four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps. 

-Steve, at Odeon Online-