Stefan Bradley
In this Binge/Foxtel eight-part crime drama, Andie Whitford gets transferred to the High Country, where she is tasked with investigating the mysterious disappearances of five locals. All episodes are available to stream.
IT’S certainly not the most original mystery drama out there, but new series High Country has many great qualities, especially its compelling lead, Sergeant Andie Whitford, played by Leah Purcell.
She’s brought her family to the town of Brokenridge for safety reasons, and they’re battling their own struggles, just as Whitford is. She partly copes by burying herself in her police work. Whitford has been in the game for a long time, but some of her new colleagues and the locals in her new high country town are suspicious of her, or don’t give her the respect she deserves.
Obviously set in Victoria’s High Country, another very important part of this series is location, location, location. Just like in the recent Aussie film Force of Nature: The Dry 2 and last year’s Disney+ series The Clearing, the Victorian landscape is its own character, as that cliché goes. There’s plenty of far away and close up shots of the beautiful, but isolated Australian country. In fact, every scene, indoors and outdoors, looks incredible – this is no cheap looking series.
Whitford herself is clearly fascinated by this wilderness and is not afraid to explore it on her own, even at night. But why is that? Is she trying to prove her strength to herself, her family, her colleagues or to the other locals? Maybe she’s just obsessed with her work, or trying to keep her mind off her home life, or exploring her relationship to country as an Indigenous woman. There’s many layers to Whitford and her performance is riveting.
The show doesn’t turn her into a super cop, with her flaws on display both in her work and personal life – and she sure makes some shocking decisions. The other main characters have their own skeletons in the closets. It’s hard to know what to make of murder suspect and apparent psychic Damien, with actor Henry Nixon keeping us guessing throughout with his odd behaviour.
The main knock against High Country is that the central crime that drives the series of events does not feel as personal for Whitford. The five murdered people are mainly unseen characters, so the other subplots in the story drive more emotion.
With eight episodes running between 42-46 minutes, it’s a great show you can binge fairly quickly, and its paced well with enough reveals to keep it interesting up to the finale. It does feel like there’s more stories to tell, so I’d certainly welcome a second season.
I mentioned Force of Nature before, which was sadly a let down compared to its predecessor, The Dry. High Country actually feels like a much superior version of Force of Nature, with better performances and character arcs. So if you’re a fan of those movies, this will scratch that itch.
High Country, which was filmed in the Victorian regional town of Jamieson, is available to stream on Binge. Image: Binge
