{"id":924763,"date":"2026-10-11T23:38:15","date_gmt":"2026-10-11T23:38:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/924763\/"},"modified":"2026-10-11T23:38:15","modified_gmt":"2026-10-11T23:38:15","slug":"dustfall-review-anna-torv-leads-a-rock-solid-thoughtful-police-drama-with-hefty-emotional-pull-australian-television","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/924763\/","title":{"rendered":"Dustfall review \u2013 Anna Torv leads a rock-solid, thoughtful police drama with hefty emotional pull | Australian television"},"content":{"rendered":"

Everybody knows that knives spread butter, Kylie Minogue sings catchy songs, and Australian screen detectives return to their small-town homes. This tried-and-tested narrative, where a crime collides with the ghosts of the past, has again been deployed in Dustfall, a six-part crime drama anchored by another very strong and persuasive performance from Anna Torv (so good in The Newsreader<\/a>) as the flinty-but-fair detective Antigone \u201cTig\u201d Pollard.<\/p>\n

Tig has relocated to the town of North Gap in Queensland when the show begins, living in the house of her recently deceased grandmother \u2013 to the chagrin of her mother, Olivia (Juliet Stevenson), who wants it sold \u2013 and feeling emotionally drained after a bruising, high-profile rape trial. But when an 18-year-old girl is discovered naked in a local cane field, with very limited recollection of the previous evening, Tig has another disturbing investigation on her hands.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Dustfall deploys familiar genre elements but it wouldn\u2019t feel right to describe it as formulaic, thanks to the intense thoughtfulness brought by director Emma Freeman and her writers (Beatrix Christian, Dianne Taylor, Belinda Chayko and Stuart Page), adapting Vikki Petraitis\u2019s novel The Unbelieved. They\u2019re less interested in the mechanics of crime than the conditions surrounding a complex social issue, using the rape of 18-year-old Edie (a painfully powerful Zoe Phillips) to examine a wide range of orbiting themes including institutional and societal misogyny, victim-blaming and complicity.<\/p>\n

Weaving all this together \u2013 while maintaining a sizzling momentum \u2013 is no easy feat, though Freeman has previously demonstrated her ability to steer morally sophisticated, psychologically charged productions such as her thrilling immigration detention drama Stateless<\/a> (co-directed with Jocelyn Moorhouse). Dustfall has an emotional pull not commonly found in detective dramas. Australia is excelling at making these shows right now, delivering several cracking examples in only the last few months including Treasure & Dirt<\/a>, The Killings at Parrish Station<\/a> and Last Seen<\/a> (though the latter technically follows a former detective).<\/p>\n

Talia Walker (Lila McGuire), Remi Jolicoeur (Bert LaBonte\u0301) and Tig Pollard (Anna Torv) in Dustfall. Photograph: Vince Valitutti<\/p>\n

When Edie\u2019s story spreads, a nurse at the local hospital (Alice Ansara) observes: \u201cIt\u2019s feeling a bit like that case on the beach.\u201d This line is delivered naturalistically, though there\u2019s no hiding its narrative significance: there\u2019s more going on here than a single isolated crime. As the plot thickens and the suspect pool widens, the whodunit format is cleverly used not just to keep us asking questions but to make a point that almost nobody is beyond doubt when problematic attitudes towards women \u2013 and outright misogyny \u2013 are felt virtually everywhere.<\/p>\n

There is a difference, of course, between problematic attitudes and shocking crimes, which the writers acknowledge while also arguing that they\u2019re part of the same system. One small but telling moment occurs when a police investigator examines footage from a pub and asks: \u201cWhat sort of a bloke drinks lime and soda?\u201d He\u2019s misguided from an investigatory perspective \u2013 Tig\u2019s police partner Remi (Bert LaBont\u00e9, also excellent) informs him that such a drink order potentially provides many clues and leads. But it\u2019s the gendered nature of the comment that sticks out; the patriarchal thinking that seeps into everyday language and behaviour.<\/p>\n

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On top of all that, there\u2019s no shortage of twists and fakeouts in Dustfall. The recurring presence of a python slithering around Tig\u2019s home, with all the symbolism that slides around with it, feels perhaps just a touch on the nose. But this is rock-solid, socially conscientious drama, imbued with weight and thought.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Everybody knows that knives spread butter, Kylie Minogue sings catchy songs, and Australian screen detectives return to their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":924764,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[64,63,134],"class_list":["post-924763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/924763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=924763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/924763\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/924764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=924763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=924763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=924763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}