Parents' Guide to

The Dry

By Jeffrey Anderson, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 15+

Slow but solid Aussie crime drama has blood, language.

Movie R 2021 117 minutes
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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?

Our review:
Parents say Not yet rated
Kids say (1):

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

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