Review: Dark Australian drama ‘Downriver’ plumbs depths of long-submerged secrets

A sleepy tale of secrets and redemption, the neo-gothic Australian film “Downriver” hovers over the question of what happened to a child drowned years ago, whose body was never found. What’s unusual, however, about this corrupted-innocence mystery from writer/director Grant Scicluna is who’s investigating: the young man who was imprisoned for the incident, which occurred when he was a boy. (A flashback cagily leaves elements of what happened unanswered.)

Released on parole and spurred to give closure to the victim’s mother, James (Reef Ireland) returns as a kind of probing ghost to the river community of cabins and trailer homes where he was raised, stirring up uneasy feelings among old friends and new neighbors, and forcing his nervous mother (a great Kerry Fox) to face her own scars as she forges a new life with a kind man (Robert Taylor).

Scicluna evades easy judgment on James, whom Ireland underplays with a mix of wariness and hard-edged compassion, while the teasing, menacing actions of James’ childhood pal Anthony (Thom Green) suggests an interpretation of the past yet to be revealed.

That James and Anthony are gay, as is a disaffected teenage boy from the trailer park who becomes an unwitting pawn, makes for a curious erotic texture, but thankfully Scicluna avoids simple links between sexuality and sin. “Downriver” is the kind of graceful provocation that slips around a corner before you can pinpoint its intentions, and that keeps it arresting as both an inquiry and a character study.

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‘Downriver’

Not rated

Running time: 1 hour, 39 minutes

Playing: Laemmle Music Hall, Beverly Hills