Brawl

Format: Feature Film (100–110 mins)
Genre: Rural Thriller / Noir / Psychological Drama
Setting: Small-town Victoria, present day
Tone: Gritty, emotionally raw, slow-burn suspense
Logline: Struck down with debilitating Ménière’s Disease, Bridget McKenna is forced to retire from the police force and return to her small home town of Carwarp to recuperate with her elderly parents. But as she regains her footing, a missing persons case pulls her into a deeper conspiracy that will rock the town to its core.

Synopsis

Bridget McKenna thought she’d left it all behind — the force, the violence, the small-town rot — but when Ménière’s disease cuts short her career as a cop, she returns to the last place she wanted to be: her childhood home in the rural Victorian town of Carwarp.

Her days blur into dizzy spells, audiologist appointments, and strained conversations with her ageing parents. But when a close family friend goes missing, Bridget finds herself pulled back into investigation mode. What begins as a reluctant search quickly reveals a disturbing pattern of disappearances, secrets, and small-town silence. The deeper she digs, the clearer it becomes: something’s rotting in Carwarp, and it’s been festering for decades.

As Bridget’s illness intensifies — distorting her senses, breaking her balance, and isolating her in soundless moments of terror — she must rely on instincts sharpened over a lifetime of law enforcement and trauma. But in a town where the lines between victim and perpetrator are blurred, where everyone knows everyone and no one says a thing, Bridget must decide: how far will she push for justice when her body is failing and the town itself wants her to stop?

Brawl is a rural noir about illness, complicity, and the cost of confronting hard truths — especially when you’re no longer the woman you once were.

Concept

Brawl is a 100-minute feature film that fuses gritty rural thriller with psychological noir, anchored by a complex female lead in physical and moral crisis. Set in a fictional but starkly realistic outback town, the film channels the haunting quiet of Sweet Country, the relentless tension of Wind River, and the personal stakes of Mystic River.

The story interrogates what it means to be “useful” — in society, in family, in justice — when your body turns against you. Through Bridget’s Ménière’s disease, the film creates an atmosphere of claustrophobia and disorientation: distorted sound design, slow-burn visuals, and sudden surges of chaos immerse the viewer in her daily struggle.

The town of Carwarp is a character in itself: sunburnt, economically decaying, full of secrets it refuses to speak aloud. As Bridget unearths the town’s buried crimes, the film explores themes of silence, guilt, and redemption — not in grand gestures, but in quiet acts of resistance.

With a layered mystery and a protagonist grappling with both internal and external limitations, Brawl asks: when justice fails and community betrays, how do you fight — and at what cost?

Development Stage

Full Treatment