The gritty streets of Philly are the backdrop to even grittier new mystery series Long Bright River. David Michael Brown explores the multi-layered, Amanda Seyfried-starring, show.
Ever since she won hearts in Mean Girls as Karen Smith, the ditzy but adorable member of the high school clique “The Plastics”, Amanda Seyfried has seen her burgeoning Hollywood career go from strength to strength as she mixed crowd pleasers like Mamma Mia! and Dear John with more esoteric choices that have stretched her as an actress and proved to audiences what a talented and interesting performer she is.
From playing infamous Deep Throat star Linda Lovelace in biopic Lovelace and freaking out in David Lynch’s much ballyhooed return to Twin Peaks to starring opposite Gary Oldman in David Fincher’s Oscar-nominated Mank and taking on the role of notorious con-artist Elizabeth Holmes in The Dropout, her school days circumnavigating the foibles of Rachel McAdams’ Regina George at North Shore High School in Evanston, Illinois, seem many miles away.
Now in Long Bright River she takes on the role of emotionally damaged Philadelphia police officer, Mickey Fitzpatrick, who is traversing a neighbourhood ravaged by opioid abuse to investigate a series of murders that may be linked to the disappearance of her rebellious sister Casey, played by Aussie Puberty Blues star Ashleigh Cummings, and their toxic childhood. Adding to her fraught life, Mickey has Thomas (Callum Vinson) to care for, his father an absent and distant voice on the phone who has seemingly ditched all of his parental responsibilities and is angered when his son calls.
Seyfried—who also acts as Executive Producer on the show, a role she also took on for Paul Feig’s forthcoming The Housemaid in which she stars opposite Sydney Sweeney—is sensational in the complex lead role. Whether showing compassion as a police officer when dealing with the addicts, sex workers and down-and-outs who now call the streets home or exasperation while dealing with the father of her child or the bureaucratic machinations of her chosen career path, she portrays this fraught multi-faceted character with depth and care.
As the Allentown native told Vanity Fair while discussing why the show was so important for her to be part of: “I could tell that it was written by somebody who also has experience with a loved one or loved ones who have battled it—and succeeded or failed and got through it or not,” Seyfried explained. “I knew that I had to do this. I felt like I owed something to Philly.”
She may have felt obligated to the “City of Brotherly Love” but that didn’t colour one aspect of her performance, as she told The Hollywood Reporter: “I’m not giving any accent. The other producers were just like, ‘Stay away! We’re not doing that.’ I grew up in Allentown, like 45 minutes from Philadelphia proper, with no accent. But I’d go down because everybody went to colleges there, including my sister. One time, when I was 14 years old, I got really stoned on pot that I believe was heavily laced with PCP. So, I knew Philly in a very specific way,” she laughed.
Channelling gritty procedurals like Mare of Easttown, The Killing and The Fall, Long Bright River, based on Liz Moore’s best-seller of the same name, is an often-unflinching look at a side of life on the streets that the loving city would like to sweep under the carpet.
When the Guardian reviewed Moore’s book, they wrote: “Long Bright River is being marketed as a thriller, but, as with the best crime novels, its scope defies the constraints of genre; it is family drama, history and social commentary wrapped up in the compelling format of a police procedural.”
Working with such a dynamic template as its source material, this brutally authentic drama is not just an enthralling whodunnit. Thanks to a supporting cast including Nicholas Pinnock as Mickey’s former partner Truman Dawes, OT the Real as fellow police office Connor ‘Dock’ McClatchie and Patch Darragh as Sergeant Kevin Ahearn, the show’s multi-layered storylines bring in societal issues, police corruption and the city’s relationship with its community. The thrill of watching is the slow discovery of how each character is involved.
The Offer and Hunters writer Nikki Toscano, who serves as showrunner, executive producer, director, and writer of the series told NBC “What makes Long Bright River so unique as a series is that it aims to deconstruct the ‘police as saviour’ narrative.”
To this end, Seyfried’s police officer is a flawed hero, haunted by her past and blinkered by her mission to find her estranged sibling. Her choices often selflessly made as the horrific murders she is investigating begin to hit home.
