The Dry (2021)

A Must watch movie and a Hidden Gem.

For the audience who has not still watched the movie.

IMDB Rating – 6.9/10

IMDB link - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5144174/

Trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7X7KkP68RZE

My Rating – 7/10

The story in short – A police investigator is visiting his hometown who left there due to some happening after a long time for attending for a funeral of his old friend who has been murdered. But after visiting, he tends to stay there effortlessly to solve the murder caused by his friend. The investigator owns so many beautiful memories with his home town and he has only one bad memory with there which caused him to leave the town. You can know, how is he going to solve this mystery.

My recommendation – I think, this is a must-watch movie. If you are interested in watching a movie with a crime thrill mixed with love and hurt of its old memories, this is a perfect match for you. This is not an action-type movie, but I promise you, you will not feel any boring until the end of this movie.

For the audience who has already watched the movie.

This is all what I see in this movie as the audience. Overall, this is a satisfying movie for me. Compared to most drama type crime movies premiered recently, this is a good movie. This movie has a great end as well as a great beginning. Except all, the way of inventing all memories is great. Everything is clearly understandable. No any doubt about the flow of the story after watching the movie.

Earlier, detective Aron visits the village where he used to live in his younger age for attending his friend’s funeral. But effortlessly he starts to investigate his old friend’s murder cause. In the scene, he is looking for a motel to stay, I feel just like I have arrived at my home after a long time. Director has done that perfectly according to the Australian way. And his (Aron’s) teenage memories bring us into another world. At first, for a while, we were forgotten that we are watching a crime movie when screening those teenage scenes. The director’s effort on combining those beautiful teenage memories with this crime mysterious story is perfect. In some recent movies, I have seen combining love and harmony with crime and thriller usually have been failed. But, in the movie “THE DRY”, the director has done that perfectly.

In the scene, Aron meets Gretchen at the school, made me really sensitive. The way of screening that scene in a calm environment and the way that brings Aron to his teenage memories are really incredible. I feel it may become more perfect if moving cameras were used by the director at the moment when Aron meets Gretchen. My proposal for that camera shot is, starting the camera from the back of Aron and moving the camera circularly towards Gretchen, and the camera becomes fixed in the middle of them.

The second scene in which Aron met Gretchen at the bar for a drink was another cutest scene in the movie. The way Gretchen was wearing made that moment more romantic. The romantic nature of that moment may be double if Aron was also worn some Black color dress. That is not just a saying to make the color combination good in that scene. I suggested that, if both of them were worn in the same manner, the audience tends to think effortlessly that both of them respect that meeting. For me, felt a bit, Gretchen was more respectful and more honest for that meeting than Aron.

Some small scenes have added great value to this movie. As an example, the moment Aron is going to throw out Paul’s book which was given to Aron by Paul’s mother, Aron sees a newspaper article about him has saved in the book by Paul. That means, Paul has been proud of his friend and when I think as Aron, I felt some guilt because he didn’t visit to see his friend until his death. And the moment when teen Aron was kissed by Ellie at the school was perfect.

In the first part of the movie, the audience thinks Paul is a guy with very bad behavior and his wife also may be murdered by him. But with the flow of the movie, the audience starts to think Paul is not a bad guy as we think. The scene where teen Paul asks Aron to tell lies as they were hunting rabbits at the moment when Elle is being murdered. At that moment, I understood, Paul is not that much bad a guy furthermore.

Now I am going to tell you what is the biggest weak point in this movie which destroyed the quality of this film. The moment when Scott fired himself, slow-motion filming has been used. As I think, that is not a suitable thing. According to my idea, slow motion is not a great fit for those scenes furthermore. It was used in old movies for those types of scenes. As I think, they had to use, some moving camera shots for that scene with usual speed.

Altogether, my idea is this is a satisfying movie and a must-watch movie.

Note - I haven't read the book based on this movie. This review is done only after watching the movie.

Written by - Ishara Wettasingha