Adelaide Film Festival review: River
This study of grief and loss from director Zane Borg is lifted by standout supporting performances from Dylan Laguerre and Shabana Azeez.
The intimate and dreary teen film is a staple of indie cinema, especially in Australia. This year’s Leviticus is a recent stand-out, and whilst being a horror film, it authentically portrays first sexual encounters, coming of age in small-town Australia, and experiencing immense grief whilst entering adulthood. River, the second feature film from director Zane Borg, takes a similar, but quieter route, following a sixteen-year-old coping with her mother’s death.
As a character, River is sullen and withdrawn, lashing out when her friend asks her if she misses her mum, and dealing with anxiety over forgetting the sound of her mother’s voice. Grief is represented in the film as an inescapable force that creates a hole in one’s life that you can attempt to fill, but ultimately, never will. You can’t replace the person you lost, but finding solace and connection in the people who are around should not be underestimated. But, this is as far as River takes its ideas about grief, approaching bereavement as a broad theme without the specificity or nuance to make its observations feel revelatory.
The film is intimate and understated, following its titular character as she navigates the grief she feels from the recent passing of her mother. Overcast throughout, River is moody and relies on the melancholic atmosphere that looms over the story. Its emotions are reserved, with a closed-off performance by its lead, Mia Barrett, as the camera repeatedly lingers on her face in close-up, ensuring the audience catches her furtive explorations of self. The film is frustrating at times, as its main character takes many beats to answer questions, dragging on the pacing, and emphasising the film’s sometimes vapid dialogue. It also overstays its welcome; instead of ending on what is the clear emotional end-point of the film, it feels the need to tie up all its threads and essentially create four different endings – dulling the potential for emotional catharsis being felt over the credits.
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Whilst emotionally dour in tone, River is given life through its supporting performances, namely River’s two best friends, portrayed by Luca Asta Sardelis and The Pitt’s Shabana Azeez, and in the film’s breakout performance, Dylan Laguerre, playing Radley, a boy who has a crush on River. Laguerre’s performance is sincere, funny, and realistic, giving the movie little sparks of light and life whenever he’s on screen. Similarly to Leviticus, River has an unromantic sexual encounter in a dirty space of her small town with a local boy, Marcus (played by William McKenna), with whom she forms a genuinely meaningful relationship, relating to each other by being motherless and desolate.
The film’s tempo may be a tad morose for some, but its emotions, whilst broad, are spellbinding, with its characters feeling too realistic to dismiss. A story of grief may seem gloomy, but it is a universal experience, allowing the film to leave something profound for anyone to latch onto and savour.
River screened as part of the 2026 Adelaide Film Festival
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