MOVIE REVIEW: “The Forest” fumbles to a lame ending
Michi (Yukiyoshi Ozawa), Sara (Natalie Dormer) and Aiden (Taylor Kinney) star in “The Forest."
Sara (Natalie Dormer) looks back one last time before entering “The Forest."
Sara (Natalie Dormer) and Aiden (Taylor Kinney) have an uneasy truce going in “The Forest."
Aokigahara is an actual 14-square-mile forest at the base of Mount Fuji in Japan. Nicknamed the Sea of Trees because it’s so lush, it’s also the most popular place in Japan to kill oneself.
Although not actually shot in Aokigahara (even though some of the city scenes were shot in Japan), the Tara National Forest in Serbia does well as a stand-in for “The Forest.” The filmmakers do a great job using the dense foliage to their advantage, and a good chunk of the movie is downright spooky. Sadly, this solid section is sandwiched between a weak start and lousy finish.
Natalie Dormer is a rising star, with plenty of popular credits to her name (Cressida in “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay” parts 1 and 2, and of course, Margaery Tyrell in the “Game of Thrones” TV series), and a dual role in “The Forest.” She plays twin sisters Sara and Jess Price, although Sara gets more screen time since Jess is the one who goes missing. That’s no great loss since Dormer plays them both basically the same except Sara is blonde and Jess is brunette.
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And Jess is also The Troubled One; after all, she has tried to kill herself twice. Sara usually ends up rescuing Jess from various lousy decisions, the latest being to explore the titular forest while employed as a teacher in Japan. This setup is fine, except that it’s also frustrating since Sara behaves exactly the way she shouldn’t for most of it: If your suicidal sister goes missing in the second most popular place to kill yourself in the world, you don’t wait on permission from your beau, Rob (Eoin Macken) to go to Japan; and once you get there, you don’t waste time in a posh hotel Googling “Aokigahara” (I’m sure there was ample time for that on the plane); you also don’t tour your sister’s school or hang out in the hotel bar getting chatted up by hunky Australian travel journalists like Aiden (Taylor Kinney). You make a beeline for the freaking suicide forest.
At least Aiden ends up being helpful since he happens to be heading to Aokigahara for a story, with a guide named Michi (Yukiyoshi Ozawa) at the ready. Sara can accompany them if Aiden can interview her and get a good story out of it, come what may.
Here the film simultaneously has game and drops the ball. Besides being so dense that it can dampen outside sounds and blot out the sun, Aokigahara boasts icy caverns, hidden pits and a floor made of craggy volcanic rock with magnetic properties that render compasses near useless. All of this would be creepy enough without the possibility of finding the remains of a long-dead hiker, or the comparatively fresh corpse of a suicide hanging from a tree.
But so much of this strange-but-true info is doled out in such a lackluster fashion, it seems more fiction than fact, and loses the punch it should have had.
When our trio finds Jess’ tent deep in the woods and far off-trail, Sara won’t leave, even though Michi says they mustn’t stay in the forest overnight. Supernatural forces work the nerves and make people see things, do things and even hurt themselves. But Sara won’t leave, and so Aiden won’t leave, while Michi must leave (but he’ll be back in the morning).
Once he leaves them alone in the wood, the jump-scares mount as Sara falls prey to the forest. Is Jess still alive? Can Aiden be trusted? Can she believe her own eyes? Her childhood fears are coming alive in the wood, taunting her. Is all this just the power of suggestion, or is Aiden really The Bad Guy? Or is the forest really getting under her skin — and into her head?
All of these questions and many more are raised … and then just dropped for an unsatisfying ending that is so typical and lame it’s insulting to the promising second and (most of the) third act.
A shame, since “The Forest” had so much going for it.
**1/2 stars
95 minutes
Rated PG-13 for disturbing thematic content and images
Behind the Scenes:
Directed by: Jason Zada
Writing Credits (in alphabetical order): Nick Antosca (writer), Sarah Cornwell (writer), Ben Ketai (writer)
Starring: Natalie Dormer, Eoin Macken, Taylor Kinney, Yukiyoshi Ozawa