Meditating on ecological disaster and the continual effects of the past, Robert Connolly’s Aussie thriller The Dry is a well executed tale of redemption and murder. A unique narrative structure and a metaphorical play on the symbols of wetness and dryness help lift The Dry above its crime drama genre conventions. 

The Dry follows the quietly cool federal agent Aaron Falk (a charming Eric Bana), who returns home to attend a funeral of a childhood friend. Flashbacks from Aaron’s past (Joe Klocek gracefully plays a younger Aaron) are shown with his current state, giving the story a unique pathos where mystery and tension co-exist in two separate timelines.

The present story consists of an investigation of a tragic murder suicide of a local family that shakes up the small rural town of Kiewarra. Karen Hadler is found dead alongside her son, and the main suspect is her husband, Luke (Martin Dingle-Wall and Sam Corlettt skillfully play old and young Luke, respectively), who is discovered with a gun by his side and a fatal head wound. The seemingly open-and-shut case becomes complicated when Aaron — who grew up as a close friend of the deceased — is persuaded to investigate the case by Luke’s parents, who look to clear their son’s name. Aaron contends with rude and aggressive locals who are still sour about another tragedy that occurred two decades prior, the death of Elle Deacon (a painfully innocuous Bebe Bettencourt), friend to Luke and Aaron. Due to circumstantial evidence, the boys were once suspected as Elle’s killers but had their testimonies cleared. Elle’s death continues to be unresolved, with locals still blaming the mournful Aaron, whose flashbacks of the events leading to Elle’s death are seen in a fuzzy, grain-like manner. 

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The vibrant cast includes Aaron’s old flame Gretchen (a sentimental Genevieve O’Reilly), the aloof local school principal Scott (a talkative John Polson) and a sincere rookie cop, Greg (an anxious Keir O’Donnell). As the story unfolds, disturbing details about the characters are uncovered and no one is safe from suspicion. Even with the predictable qualities of the whodunit, The Dry still manages to innovate through projecting the tensions of characters, who feel the weight of the past and struggle to make sense of their world during larger environmental catastrophes. 

Wildfires constantly glow in the background and the presence of plants and trees highlights both a physical and psychological tinder box, mirroring the restless anxiety beneath the characters. Though it may be a trope to depict the past as blurry, the fuzziness and movement of the grains in the footage of Aaron and Elle’s past bring forth the fluidity of the river the teenagers often visited. From cinematographer Stefan Duscio’s wide vistas of the open plains and dried up rivers of present day Kiewarra, audiences witness the effects of an ongoing drought, which renders the town as ecologically deficient and environmentally precarious. The metaphor of wetness/water as a stand in for the dynamic flow of the past contrasts with the dried up rivers and plains which correlate with the static nature of the unresolved present. 

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Despite its visual metaphors that address the fragility of Kiewarra’s natural habitat, The Dry is never polemical, with its criticisms subtly aimed at the carelessness with which the land is treated. It isn’t surprising that when the perp is revealed, fire is keenly used to showcase the vulnerability of the land. The killer threatens to burn down local trees, risking destruction of the only semblance of environmental normalcy remaining as well as the town that is built around such vegetation. 

It is with hazardous, gas-producing fire that Connolly shows the collision of dryness and wetness, where the unsettled nature of the present meets the fluid existence of the past. With the killer reveal juxtaposed to the barbaric murder of the Hadlers, editors Nick Meyers and Alexandre de Franceschi masterfully deliver an affecting parallel sequence, keeping in line with the editing pattern of the film, where past and present moments are constantly mixed, often in poignant fashion. The elements of The Dry may be conventional, but the presentation, as well as Connolly’s attunement to very real concerns, still burns.

Mo Muzammal is a freelance film critic based in Southern California. His interests include Pakistani Cinema, Parallel Cinema and film theory.