Crime procedurals get an incredibly fresh and welcome injection of pathos with the Stellan Skarsgård puzzler River. Intricately constructed plots and dynamic characters are the core strengths of what promises to be a major success for the BBC this September.
While Skarsgård is the emotional and narrative epicentre of the show, he is surrounded by a bevy of solid actors (the supreme talents that are Lesley Manville, Nicola Walker, Eddie Marsan and Adheel Akhtar, respectively) who kick up the intensity and heart a wonderful couple of notches. Set in east London, River explores the ways in which people are bound to history, defined by and, in John River’s case, haunted by it.
The first episode of River opens on a typical cop drama setup: two detectives are settling in for what seems to be a long evening shift by chowing down on burgers and chatting about holidays. River (Skarsgård) and his partner, Stevie (Walker) establish a warm rapport. River plays the somber and somewhat preoccupied straight man to Stevie’s sunny and sharp-minded sidekick. She cajoles a smile or two out of him as the drive through the city, on the beat, by singing along to the radio when it happens: River spots a car that might be the same used in a recent crime and they follow in hot pursuit.
What follows is a slow peeling back of layers of the mysteries of one man’s mind. River’s handling of grief in a time of great loss and the tireless search for answers quietly tax him. Death is an old friend of River’s; encounters with friends and victims come to him as he tries to deal with the weight of their passing while performing at a top level. His manifestations (a mensch move recalling the methods of a certain Baker Street detective) keep his mind sharp, not afraid to be a little self-deprecating but ultimately making sure River doesn’t stop moving towards success.
The standout asset is not merely the supreme cast; all of the actors present inhabit the bodies of their onscreen personas more than capably. What makes River such a golden ticket is Abi Morgan’s tight scripting and clear vision of what must unfold. She does not waste time spoon-feeding us information nor does she unfurl mawkish soliloquies on her audience. She presumes viewers are familiar with crime dramas, that they know the tropes and can handle a little shop talk. But she brilliantly frees the dialogue of anything overtly technical. Morgan instead hones in on the emotions which drive every character to live their own truth and she does it without telling us outright.
To presume the intelligence of your viewers is to create a dedicated fan-base and Morgan deftly does this. River is not your typical cop drama if only because its eponymous dark horse detective is not your average hero. There is depth here extending beyond the traditional procedural framework. If the following episodes are anything similar to this pilot, audiences will find themselves more than willing to be drawn into this beautifully sorrowful world.
River premiered on the BBC on October 13th, and will be available on Netflix as of November 18th.
