Director: Darren K Hawkins
Writer: Stephen Knight
Cast: Samm Louise Cluff, Lauren Hamilton Neill, Kaeng Chan
Running time: 1hr 43mins
The police procedural genre is as tempting as it is dangerous for any low-budget filmmaker. Its thrills and dramas are innate, its mysteries, and reveals are baked in. But when budgets are low and access to real crime procedure is limited, how does one capture its latent cinematic potential without sacrificing the verisimilitude it demands? It’s a battle even major productions fall victim to, and regretfully, The Girl in the Shadows stumbles at many of the same hurdles.
It helps that Darren K Hawkins’ film is less concerned with the trappings of the genre, and more so with depicting just how deep the corrosive nature of trauma can burn. Its parasitic venom robs us of who we might have been, replacing what once was with a dark shadow stuck in time. The Girl in the Shadows may not be a success, but its ambitions are clear and its themes are timely, even if they’re underserved by a story that struggles to see them through to the end.
Detective Shelly Tyrone wakes each night screaming. Her dreams are a reminder of the night she’ll never forget, and her only escape arrives in the shape of a bottle. When she’s called to the scene of a violent homicide, old wounds are reopened, and Shelly is forced to face her past head-on.
The opening scenes of Hawkins’ film set a promising precedent. His camera is assured and recalls the calm confidence of David Fincher’s forays into the genre. The score, composed by Leon Ross and Elena Ross, layers in an escalating atmosphere that elevates the images on screen. The sound and visual landscape remain effective throughout – often more so than the sets they’re capturing – and help sell the diegesis of its world.
Actor Samm Louise Cluff imbues Shelly Tyrone with enough humanity to elevate beyond the familiarity of her character. Suffering from PTSD, it’s Shelly’s brief moments of joy that sell the heavy trauma she carries like a backpack, her smile wide but never quite reaching her eyes. These moments are more effective than the now mandatory bottle of whiskey all spiralling detectives must keep on hand for a destructive swig or two.
It’s Lauren Hamilton Neill’s performance as Jen who stands the tallest, Shelly’s close friend, who shares many of the same scars from the worst night of their lives. Still fighting for her mobility in physical therapy, Jen has had nothing but time to ruminate on the people who put her there, and Neill sells every bit of caustic resentment burning inside her.
At one moment, a character sighs, “I think I hate this city’, but The Girl in the Shadows feels far less effective at capturing a bustling city than it does the quiet desperation of a small rural town. Set in Tamworth, New South Wales, Australia, Hawkins’ film captures place, if not scale, and argues that the generational rot that sticks to its corners can corrupt even the most virtuous. Hawkins’ ambition should be lauded, but with the limitations of his budget, a smaller setting might have given the film a more convincing stage on which to play out its drama.
Set design feels sparse, with many key locations consisting of little more than tables and chairs. While this limitation works in Shelly’s home – a visible symptom of the vacant dissociation that rules her life – it feels less compatible with environments that should feel active and lived-in.
It’s in Shelly’s police precinct where many of The Girl in the Shadows flaws come to light. The procedure of this procedural is unconvincing – a trip to the forensic pathologist sees her declaring, ‘I deal with science,’ – and this same lack of subtlety infects the rest of the script from top to toe.
The Girl in the Shadows features possibly the most absurdly awful police sergeant in cinema history, his male chauvinism so rampant and obscene it becomes parodic. In any world resembling our own, Ric Herbert’s Detective Sergeant “Chubbs” would become the first employee to completely bypass an HR meeting and go straight to an HR shooting.
This film has interesting ideas on its mind – how underfunding and decades of toxic male leadership can create a system that corrupts more than it cures – but when it’s delivered this ham-handedly, the grander point gets lost in the weeds.
A similar disappointment arrives with the third act, which trades in its broad but heartfelt depictions of trauma for villainous monologues and waving guns. It’s a remarkably silly finale that promises thrills but instead undermines the motivations and pains of its characters. A final note of explosive resignation brought me a smile, but by then, The Girl in the Shadows had morphed into a ride I wanted to leave.
Darren K Hawkins’ The Girl in the Shadows features assured filmmaking and powerful performances from its principal cast. Sadly, silly plot turns and a clumsy approach to its themes mean it has the right to stay silent.
