Powerful new crime drama Dustfall is one you won’t forget

Some ABC crime series like to keep things light. Scenic settings, quirky characters, plenty of banter and a story where the focus is on the twists and turns leading up to the big reveal. Dustfall is not one of those series.

The basic set-up is about as familiar as it gets. Which is to say, it’s about a detective who returns to her small home town only to discover that a seemingly straightforward crime goes much further than it initially seems. It’s getting hard to imagine that any crime gets solved in rural and regional Australia unless there’s a big city detective available to head back home to tackle it.

But Dustfall has bigger things on its mind than taking us through the genre’s greatest hits. Based on Vikki Petraitis’ novel The Unbelieved and directed by Emma Freeman (The Newsreader), this new series uses familiar tropes to lure viewers in, but then twists those tropes to examine larger – and harsher – realities.

A violent crime and a town with secrets

Detective Antigone ‘Tig’ Pollard (Anna Torv) has returned to the Queensland town of North Gap and moved into her deceased grandmother’s place. She wants to fix it up. Her mother Olivia (Juliet Stevenson), who turns up on her doorstep unannounced, wants it sold – which, as we soon learn, is only one of a number of bones of contention between them.

Things are at least going better with her new boyfriend Mitch (Ben Knight), who seems pretty much perfect. Though when Tig runs into a former flame, local muso Andy (Peter Fenton), it casts a shadow over things; she was 16 and he was 32 when they slept together. Back then she was a young girl admiring an older man. Things are very different now.

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Meanwhile, in the front bar of the local pub, 18-year-old high school student Edie Kelly (Zoe Phillips) is trying to let her friend Finn Morrison (Theo Haitana) down gently. He doesn’t take rejection well and once he storms out, the rest of the pub sees her as fair game. The next morning she’s found naked and battered in a cane field with no idea how she got there.

Tig gets the case. Edie was drugged and raped, as a gruelling scene involving a forensic exam makes clear. The detective’s gentle handling of the teenager is balanced by her steely approach towards the pub dwellers, who may or may not be suspects. Her partner Remi (Bert LaBonté) is happy to have a chat; she can barely conceal her anger.

Watch the trailer

Rewriting how sexual assault is explored on-screen

The first episode takes its time, but it never feels slow. The focus is on ensuring the crime being investigated is given its proper weight, rather than racing off to the next twist. There’s a lingering scene where Tig and her fellow officers read the forensic report on Edie off computer screens, cutting between their saddened faces and the grim details of what was done to her.

Edie herself never comes off as just a victim (thanks in part to a strong performance from Phillips) but this works hard to make sure the horror of what was done to her hits home.

Episode one ends with a suspect found dead, and the story keeps expanding from there. Part of the reason Tig came back was to escape the fallout from a high profile rape case she investigated that was thrown out by the courts. (Turns out the young woman involved is now being sued for libel by the man who assaulted her.) And when a local nurse says Edie’s situation is ‘like that case on the beach’, you don’t have to be an experienced sleuth to know there’s more going on than a single random attack.

At its most essential level, Dustfall is a solid whodunnit, weaving in a growing roster of suspects while the twists keep on coming. Beyond that, it’s also interested in the wider aspects of its central crime – it’s not just about crime, but what lies behind the crime. A school visit for information reveals wider concerns about drink spiking and sexual assault but no easy answers; casual misogyny and bullying seemingly run throughout the town.

The series all comes together as an examination of a society that allows this kind of crime to not only happen, but to become something people accept as a part of life. Running throughout the series is the awareness that those who suffer should have a say in the shape that justice takes. Tig may be the one putting the pieces together, but she may not get the final say.

Dustfall doesn’t always make for comfortable viewing, but a series this determined to have something to say – and which says it so articulately and skilfully – is a rare pleasure.

Dustfall airs on ABC TV on Sundays, with the entire series now available to stream on iView.

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