Directed by Robert Connolly, Jane Harper’s novel becomes the latest in a pantheon of
Australian films about drought and its many devastations
Jane Harper’s best-selling novel The Dry is one of those books that feels written with a feature film adaptation in mind: a genre narrative (crime mystery-thriller) that’s pacey, plot-driven and full of dialogue, with a central location ripe for cinematic imagery. Extensive use of flashbacks is built into its structure, and they’re even presented in italics as if to say, “This is where the cuts and scene changes go”.
Director Robert Connolly’s adaptation is a very gripping and polished film, commandingly performed and directed, with an airtight sense of tonal cohesiveness – despite lots of, well, air in the frame, derived from countless mid- and long-shots capturing barren exterior locations in a fictitious Australian outback town. Written by Connolly and Harry Cripps, the script – like Harper’s book – hinges on dual mysteries: one concerning the recent and the other a distant past; both involving deaths that were potentially but not necessarily murders.