Movie Review: THE GIRL IN THE RIVER

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: September 5th, 2026 / 12:56 AM

THE GIRL IN THE RIVER movie poster | ©2026 Samuel Goldwyn Films

Rating: Not Rated
Stars: Maggie Grace, Devon Sawa, Tiffany Haddish, Ralph Macchio, Andrew Stevens, Angelena Swords, David Moncrief, Darron Dunbar, Lucy Blair
Writer: Brando Benetton
Director: Brando Benetton
Distributor: Samuel Goldwyn Films
Release Date: September 4, 2026

THE GIRL IN THE RIVER is a mostly decently-executed procedural. In its structure, it could be mistaken for a long episode of a serious-minded TV crime-solving series, assuming the show has two leads who don’t like or trust each other very much.

Newly-minted Mississippi Department of Investigations (a fictional government branch that resembles the FBI) agent Amelia Pembrock (Maggie Grace) isn’t sure she’s cut out for field work. Veteran agent Alan Kramer (Devon Sawa) is clearly suffering from alcoholism and wants to retire immediately.

Nevertheless, their mutual boss Erica Graysmith (Tiffany Haddish) decides that these two reluctant operatives should be teamed up and sent to solve a high-profile case in Canton, Mississippi.

As we see in the opening, a masked, gloved man stops a van in the middle of a suspension bridge, removes a body and throws the corpse over the edge into the river below.

When the body is recovered, the deceased is identified as fourteen-year-old Greta Otto, daughter of wealthy Canton residents Arthur (Andrew Stevens) and Ilsa Otto (Angelena Swords).

The grief of these parents is compounded by fear and confusion because their other daughter Anna (both roles played by Lucy Blair) is missing and likely in the hands of whoever murdered her twin Greta.

As they dig in, Pembroke and Kramer find more and more puzzling aspects to the evidence.

Writer/director Brando Benetton has constructed a good foundation for a mystery, including elements cleverly designed to deliberately throw the main characters off the scent. Also, with an abducted child presumably taken by a known killer, the stakes could hardly be higher.

But Benetton undermines himself in a variety of ways. In trying to add to the drama, he overdoes it from the start. We can accept that a supervisor might send out one agent who is openly ambivalent about the investigation, but two of them?

Despite solid performances from Grace and especially Sawa, who is convincing as a man who can barely bring himself to function, the confrontational dynamic is over-familiar and neither informative nor entertaining to spend time with for long.

Finally, after the culprit has gone to great lengths to mislead the protagonists, he carelessly reveals something that undoes it all. Maybe this is meant to confirm a psychological observation about subconscious needs that Pembroke has made earlier, but it feels wrong in the moment.

Despite all this, THE GIRL IN THE RIVER should be okay fare for people who crave something that can tide them over until the next seasons of CRIMINAL MINDS: EVOLUTION and NCIS start back up.

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