Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Forest’ On Netflix, About The Search For A Girl Who Goes Missing In The Ardennes

Missing kid series aren’t just an American thing. First we got Safe from the UK, and now we have Netflix’s The Forest, which was made in France. Can the French make as twisty a mystery as their American and British counterparts?

THE FOREST: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Shots of the hilly forest in the Ardennes in France. A teenage girl who’s in tears walks in the woods, then walks down a road that has the words “Bois du Fays” (Fays Forest) on it.

The Gist: We cut to a home in the adjoining village. Lt. Virginie Musso (Suzanne Clément), a local cop, and her husband Vincent (Frédéric Diefenthal) get ready for their day. They have a son and daughter. The daughter, Maya (Martha Canga Antonio), is seen frantically scrubbing blood off her hands in the bathroom as her brother calls her to breakfast.

The girl who walked into the woods is Jennifer Lenoir (Isis Guillaume), Maya’s closest friend. We see Maya and Jennifer at the local high school, but they’re not talking. Jennifer is definitely having some issues. She’s been staying with the Mussos lately, but recently had a falling out with Maya — according to Maya, Jennifer insulted her about being adopted. Jennifer sees a threat scrawled in her locker and bolts out of school. Following her is the French teacher Eve Mendel (Alexia Barlier), who’s close with Jennifer, and who has a history of her own in that town.

We also see two other parents drop off their kids at school: Thierry Rouget (Patrick Ridremont) a local electrician and drunk, drops off his rebellious daughter Océane (Inès Bally), who seems to be in a not-so-savory pact with Jennifer and Maya involving something going on in the woods. Also dropping off is Capt. Gaspard Decker (Samuel Labarthe), Lt. Musso’s new boss who is former military and by the book.

After the incident at school, we see Jennifer go into the woods that night, then Eve gets a late-night call where she hears something she doesn’t like. She immediately goes to the police; Capt. Decker takes her seriously, but Musso isn’t so sure she’s reliable, given her history. Decker investigates, and Eve also presses forward. What she finds in the woods leads to some distressing discoveries.

Our Take: The Forest (original name La Forêt), is a French miniseries that debuted in its home country in 2017, one of the many quality international shows and movies Netflix has bought and introduced to a worldwide audience. (The gimmick in France was that viewers could bet on the identity of the show’s culprit). It really has the same feeling as other shows the network has brought to their viewers: moody and mysterious; full of characters who are well established in the pilot; and a mystery with a lot of directions to look. But, unlike Safe from earlier this year, there are some surprises afoot, mainly revolving around Eve and Maya.

Some aspects of the show, we’ve seen before. For example, the new by-the-book cop clashing with the cop who grew up in town and knows everyone, enough to let someone like Thierry drive around with liquor on his breath. But Musso also knows the beefs and disputes around town that can lead to false reports, like when two guys who find Jennifer’s bike in the woods say Thierry’s truck was in the area. Decker is a classic uptight asshole, but he’s also determined to push through the local BS and actually investigate Eve’s claims.

Eve, though, is intriguing: she showed up at a local physician’s house when she was six, abandoned and dirty, and he took her in. Even though she’s had psychological issues that led to hospitalization, she’s now teaching kids in high school. But she has instincts other characters don’t, as we see when she finds clues in the forest after someone leaves her a map scrawled into the dirt on her motorbike’s windshield. Her character will be the key to whether this show goes in new directions, or is just a less interesting version of Big Little Lies.

This is a show where everyone suspects everyone else, and you’ll see fleeting scenes that could be red herrings (or could be significant clues). We can’t bet on the outcome here (legally), but those clues hopefully won’t distract from what’s generally a good show.

Sex and Skin: To establish that Eve is a loner, we see her wake up after sleeping with a random guy. He asks for her number. She replies by telling him to lock the door on the way out.

Parting Shot: After Virginie gets a package that contains the clothes Jennifer wore the night she disappeared (though seemingly clean and undamaged), she notices something on ATM camera footage near the post office — and it’s a pretty big surprise.

Sleeper Star: We hope to see more of Antonio as Maya Musso. Maya is black, in a town where virtually everyone else is white, so she uses the adoption story as a convenient cover about her falling out with Jennifer. Hopefully we’ll find out more about Maya’s history and explore any identity conflicts she may have. As it is, Virginie and Vincent don’t seem to know what their daughter is up to, which they chalk up to her being sixteen. Did she scrawl the threat in Jennifer’s locker? Why was she scrubbing blood off her hands? Is Virginie too close to everyone in town — and her daughter — to see what’s really going on?

Most Pilot-y Line: Why does Musso’s deputy have to be fat with greasy hair and a cheesy mustache? Can’t a local deputy on TV be a competent cop for a change?

Our Call: Stream It. There’s more than enough intrigue — and fine performances — to keep us watching.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company’s Co.Create and elsewhere.

Where to stream The Forest