User Reviews

Yes, I gave this a 7 because I was entertained.

The plot was okay. Hey real life is weird. And people are never what they seem, so I had no problems with the plot.

However, the implausibilities are tough to overlook and slid into the ridiculous. Spoilers below:

First the female cop would never have been allowed to work the case because it would be a defense lawyer's wet dream.

Next, if they did allow her to work the case, the first slip up and she'd be out, not the tenth and she gets a warning and then continues inappropriate behavior, including found out to have withheld evidence.

An unlocked evidence room???

People can barge into the police station with rifles??? No one noticed?

Is the door to the police station ever locked? Who's minding the store?

And evidence tape is tampered with and it's, oh well. It'll be okay. Again a defense lawyer's wet dream.

She withheld evidence and during the completely inappropriate scene with the two teens threatened them with arrest for withholding evidence. The captain finds out and barely shrugs.

The teens are questioned together. Ones underage but no lawyer. No call to parents. They're left alone to get their stories straight. Nice police work.

Why isn't hubby in jail? What's the age of consent over there? And two people say that saw him leave the house and *he* admitted it. Why isn't he being treated like a suspect and the cop wife, too???

Why are you walking around repeatedly alone in the woods where girls are being murdered? Even after a guy breaks into your home and ends up dead at your house, yet there you are alone in the wood again and again, touching evidence and no one on the police force tells you to cut it out or warns you to not touch anything you find?

Who owns the wolf? But, wait there's no wolves in those parts.

Still living alone after nearly being set on fire!

You now have everyone's DNA. Why not have all of it tested against yours to find out who impregnated and killed your mom? Maybe pops is still around. Oh wait, maybe its the same guy who killed those girls way back and is still killing people and if you share DNA, then... Nope, never occurs to anyone. And you actually believe it's someone in the village and you have everyone's DNA!!! And still, never occurs...

So what's the deal with the circles? How does that tie in? Was the killer also the therapist? I mean he went to a lot of trouble to destroy the tapes.

Believe it or not this series still managed to entertained.

I watched this series because of the positive reviews it's had. Big mistake. Crime novels and Crime TV shows are big business these days, so I suppose it's only natural that they're turned into soap opera fodder. Suzanne Clément as the cop whose teenage daughter goes missing is such a drama queen it's embarrassing. As other reviewers have pointed out, there's no way she would be included in this investigation and there's the scene where she punches out a paedophile suspect during an interview. Seriously? Even funnier is when the crooked dad whose daughter's also gone missing storms into the police station with a hunting rifle. Gimme a break. This would've made a decent 90 minute film if they'd cut out all the histrionics. As a 6 part crime drama, it's a joke.

The series is atmospheric, chilling, and the truth when revealed is sordid and shocking.

The story follows Captain Gaspard Decker as he arrives in a small, close knit village as it's new Police Chief. He's barely arrived when a local teacher, Eve Mendel, expresses deep concern about a missing girl.

Decker is a former soldier, who is clearly supposed to be something of a new broom, he's a little reserved to begin with, while it is clear that his colleagues, especially his Lieutenant Virginie Musso, are cosy and comfortable in their lives and existence in the village, he prefers things to be more formal.

As the case moves on, Virginie's knowledge of the village, and her assumptions are challenged. As her view of the order of things in Montfauchon is turned upside down, Decker's commanding tone, and more reserved manner make more sense to her.

This quiet, and slow-building story might not be to everyone's taste, but it's well-written, well-acted and convincing in its sordidness. Gaspard's authoritative reserve pays dividends as he investigates the crimes, the disappearance of three girls, the cold case from more than ten years before, and the mystery of Eve herself. The scenery is stunning, and as a portrait of a village under extreme circumstances, and indeed the nature of that way of life, it works. Well worth viewing.

This crime series steadfastedly follows in the footsteps of other European whodunnits on Netflix: a small town near a big, dark forest, lots of people with secrets and pasts that should remain hidden. After the ascent of shows like Dark and Black Spot, this one naturally joined into a trio that keeps the same aesthetics and mood. There are even more similarities, both in Black Spot and and Forest everything revolves around the disappearance of a girl where the officer in charge of the investigation happens to be her mother. That's not necessarily a bad thing though it does kill some suspence, making you feel you've seen it before. Here, they're on the hunt for the murderer of the missing girl, Jennifer. That unfolds a sequence of events that lead to tragic consequences. The colors are dark and foggy, the scenery is suitably cold and frightful. There are annoying and predictable details, like the wolf who plays a deux ex machina whenever there's a need for it. There's a lack of attractive and genuinely charismatic characters. One of the few is Oceane, a girl who likes to get into trouble and just can't let it go even when things go terribly wrong. The teacher Eve is the one that the subtle strings of the case somehow always come back to, but for a character central like that, they should have recast, because what we see is someone rather bland and almost autistic. The case and the investigation itself are exciting and keep you on your toes till the very end, which is the most important thing after all. So if you look past a few weak spots, you might get an enjoyable binge.

This decade has brought along dozens of catchy crime drama series in French, often with short title, e.g. Les Temoins, Le Chalet, La Mante, La trêve, etc., and often resembling Scandinavian thrillers in their own, pleasant French manner. There is no fancy Paris or big city life, but mostly nature, small villages or townships, "small" people with "big" issues...

La forêt is another fine example, with realistic events, thrill, interesting characters, good performances; perhaps some scenes were excessive and/or over-mystified, but as I did not figure out the wrongdoer and all things were explained daintily, it is definitely a 8/10 series at least, excelling most of related U. S. series. Vis-à-vis many reviewers here, I had nothing against the final episode´s structure, not following the usual path of solutions around the wrongdoer´s capture.

(The review contains mild spoilers , general mentions)

The story is about the disappearances of some girls in a small French town.

The camera work, scenery, music and cast is all good. What is lacking here is the writing of some characters and the plot, which starts quite nicely, builds up a nice mystery but as time goes by, it becomes more and more silly. The female protagonist is the worst police officer ever , always sentimental, irrational and making idiotic decisions one after the other. In real life she would be off the case (if not fired entirely) by the end of second episode and I'm being lenient. That seriously affects the plot and takes away seriousness and drama, at times it becomes laughable and annoying.

Then we have the French teacher. She is all over the place, seeing specific things here and there in the forest , that are not actually there but are also never explained. It is also strange that every single piece of evidence the police has, she is the one who delivers it. In many scenes we waych the same thing again and again, we have her showing up in her motorcycle out of nowhere, takes off the helmet , says she must help, some police officer casually allows her to do so, because "reasons" , and then she runs off somewhere on the woods and comes back with a new finding. It is like the writers had no other idea of how to make the story move forward.....and there were ways.

There were many irrational and repetitive things like these.

One more thing that made the series seem of lesser quality was almost the entirety of last episode, which pretty much is the tombstone of the series. We are approaching the end of the mystery and the revelation of the "bad guy-s . Irrationally has completely taken over, with people of the law acting like they have not the slightest idea of what they are doing, to the point it is almost painful to watch. Then , we have the introduction of our villain. In most cases it is either someone we suspected or someone who seemed completely innocent to us, the audience, as well as to other characters within the story. In this case it is someone barely seen in previous episodes and that reduces the dramatic effect greatly.

All in all , it is somewhat nice to watch as something to pass the time , but have no greater expectations than that.

When a 16 year old school student Jennifer goes missing, Captain Gasper Decker (Samuel Labarthe) and his team goes about investigating. All that they have as lead is the phone call received by the ever mysterious french teacher Eva Mendel (Alexia Barlier) right before the girls disappearance. The series is entirely in french, but was riveting enough for me to ignore that fact. It comes with the usual share of mystery, lies and thrill.

The 6 episode series starts pretty strongly with the first two episodes moving the story along at a brisk pace. All the characters are introduced and some of the prime suspects are introduced and nullified in quick succession. The story takes a turn when the missing child ends up dead and that is followed by two more girls going missing. The story, as the title says centers around a forest in the outskirts of the village where there had been instances of kids gone missing decades ago.

The series however loses its pace as quickly as it had gained it and the next couple of episodes were slow and meandering aimlessly until it gains momentum yet again to end pretty strongly in the 5th and 6th. The makers did close out most of the loopholes surrounding the narrative and some of the 'surprise elements' were quite guessable.

This limited mini-series is yet another super catch by Netflix and it pretty much holds its own among other Netflix bigwigs like Dark, The Five, Broadchurch et all, for most of it. The character development, the cast, the locations and bgm were all top notch and thoroughly enjoyable even though i did not understand a word of what was said. I would suggest it for anybody who is into the Netflix genre of mystery series's.