Distrust in the dust, doubt ridden drought ravaged, debt riddled, THE DRY.

Based on the bestselling novel by Jane Harper, THE DRY is a complex crime story set in the heat shimmering Wimmera, where the rain strapped town of Kiewarra has been the scene of an apparent murder suicide.

The assumption is that farmer Luke Hadler, driven to despair by the drought, slaughtered his wife and six year old son then turned the shottie on himself.

But why did he spare his other child, a toddler confined to its cot?

Luke’s parents don’t believe their son was capable of such a crime and lure his boyhood mate, Aaron Falk, now a city based Federal Policeman, to investigate.

Falk left the town under a cloud after the death of another contemporary, Ellie Deacon, and suspicion and hostility are barely kept under the surface when he hits town for the funerals and stays on, under duress, to investigate.

True to its source material, THE DRY is a superior crime drama seething with the sins of the past and the struggle to atone. Arguably, it’s the best work by Eric Bana since Chopper, an ironic bookend career best playing a cop rather than a crim.

He is surrounded by a splendid supporting cast that includes Bruce Spence, Julia Blake, Keir O’Donnell, Miranda Tapsell, Renee Lim and BeBe Bettencourt, who sings a haunting version of The Church’s Under The Milky Way which serves as the film’s unofficial theme song.

With a screenplay by Robert Connolly and Harry Cripps, and directed by Connolly, THE DRY has a dramatic unity, an economy of word and action that elevates this film above the ruck of genre films.

Stefan Duscio’s camera work is outstanding, focusing a laser lens on this particular Australian landscape, the brutal beauty of both nature and the man made. From the parched plains to the country pub, the burnished bush and evaporated waterways, the images are readily identifiable to anyone who calls Australia home.

THE DRY is good reason to break the box office drought imposed by Covid, an excellent excuse for audience to flood the cinemas and start the new year with style.