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Jason Zada
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Connections, in both directions
Sara travels first to Tokyo – where she views neon lights from a car window in the style of Lost in Translation – and then moves on to the woods at the base of Mount Fuji.
When she first ventures to Japan—in an efficient if not especially elegant bit of storytelling, the movie has her setting off almost immediately, circling back for quick hits of exposition as the story progresses—the movie briefly hints at her displacement, like a more dread-infused Lost In Translation .
Faster than you can say, “This exact shot of someone riding in a taxi cab through downtown Shinjuku sure was a lot more interesting in Lost in Translation,” Emily has flown 6,000 miles on a quest to find her sayonara’d sibling.
Sara's alienation in this foreign land cannot match the potency of 2003's " Lost in Translation " or even 2004's " The Grudge ," but it still gives the story an added layer of mystery even as all else falls too neatly into place.
It takes its subject seriously, even though the build-up succumbs to some light though hardly deal-breaking “Lost in Translation”-style “isn’t Japan weird?” Ugly Americanism.
It does, however, contain one clever series of images, akin to (but not nearly as frightening as) the woman crawling out of the well and through the TV screen in "The Ring."
The cycle began with Naomi Watts in 2002's The Ring and eventually grew to include Sarah Michelle Geller (2004's The Grudge), Jennifer Connelly (2005's Dark Water), Amber Tamblyn (2006's The Grudge 2) and Kristen Bell (2006's Pulse).
Films like The Ring, The Grudge, Pulse and Dark Water are only a few examples that The Forest more than just borrowed from.
He also misses out on realizing a Lynchian element that’s embedded in a script that’s otherwise closer to Wrong Turn, one that ties into Sara’s understanding of her own identity.
“The Forest” takes that idea and makes it into a lightweight horror flick, though it’s really just another cinematic example of Americans abroad who are tormented on foreign soil (see most recent examples “No Escape” or “The Green Inferno”).
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 (2015)
Directed by Francis Lawrence
influenced The Forest (2016)
Her lead character may be far from stable, but Natalie Dormer (2015's " The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 ") is a reliable constant; her performance is arguably more complex than what the screenplay offers her.