Disparue

Had me hooked from start to finish! Great cast. Just wish my French was better!

Another drama where you have the grieving making accusations at the police, because they think they're not doing their jobs correctly. Blame Blame. Oh and wait 'loud outbursts'.

While I thought it was over the top it still drew me in. I knew who the killer was in the 1st 30 minutes. What kept me watching was they were to be caught, with the twists and turns.

Nordic crime mystery-thriller stuff one of my favorites when it comes to genres. It's interesting to see another country attempt to copy the formula, especially when it isn't a remake.

While "The Disappearance" isn't a remake, it is definitely a copy. A girl disappears, then the carousel of suspect family members and acquaintances. They each take their turn in custody and interrogation while those waiting their turn to be brought in express suspicion of those currently being questioned. Hints that the primary investigator has something in his past that he'd rather not talk about. Lots of borrowed plot elements.

The carousel-recipe, regardless of country, isn't my favorite. It's almost lazy writing, as it could be anyone — just depends on when the carousel stops. When it does stop, a backstory explaining guilt is abruptly created. I prefer the genre variation where the viewer is shown the perpetrator early on and the story that unfolds is how they are found out.

"Disparue" would be great if it were the first of a kind — but at this point it's been done over and over, and often better, in other countries. "Bron/Broen" and the UK "Broadchurch" are examples of 'better'. That being said, "The Disappearance" is engagingly watchable while waiting for the next addictive Nordic Noir crime thriller to come out.

If considered separately, particularly, then Disparue is definitely not bad - the story is in place, tensions and twists available, most of performances and characters sustained... But, having comprehensive knowledge of similar Scandinavian creation, then you might want to declare that the final solution is too trivial, there are several scenes providing no additional value to the course of events, and that the French-specific qualities (e.g. friskiness, inconsistency, fast talking) do not fully fit in the background, requiring more balanced and reasoned approaches and actions (instead of Lyon - although a fine place - the location could have been a city in Northern France where Belgian/British "calmness" is more visible). Moreover, female performances excel the male ones, and as for some suspects, it was evident right away that they cannot be offenders in this case, event taking into account the past actions.

But still, if you have not seen e.g. Forbrydelsen, then Disparue is a unquestionably a worth-watch, preferably within short interval, in order to main the thrill between the episodes.

Was hooked from the first episode. Then found out it was actually a remake of a 2008 Spanish TV series set in Madrid and that won many awards. Would love to watch the original in Spanish now!