A Garota na Fita

This is layered. An engrossing story within an immersive story. Milena Smit is quite convincing as the young journalist with a tortured past that she has difficulty overcoming. Veteran actor Jose Coronado is quite likeable as Miren's teacher and confederate. And Aixa Villagran is quite commendable as the tireless, persistent investigator.

The approach of the film to storytelling is engaging even as it jumps from one year to another. The viewer might be wondering whatever happened to Amaya because her screen presence is limited for the most part to the videos Iris sends to Miren 3 years apart. But the patient viewer gets the complete picture in the penultimate episode.

This Spanish production is worth watching. It's bingeable.

As this six part series opens a family; mother, father and five year old Amaya, attend the festival of the Three Wise Men in Malaga in 2010. As her father buys her a balloon little Amaya walks off. She is not seen again. CCTV suggests that a person, or persons, took her. Miren, a trainee journalist working as an intern for a newspaper is keen to cover the story. In 2016 there has been no real progress in the case. Then, on Amaya's twelfth birthday somebody sends a VHS tape to Miren; it shows Amaya alive and well. This reinvigorates the investigation.

I thought this was a gripping series. The opening succeeds in grabbing the viewer's attention the story manages to keep things interesting right up until the end. This conclusion wraps up most retails but leaves just enough questions unanswered to raise the possibility of another season. The investigations carried out by the police and Miren are interesting to watch although it seemed a little odd that one of the most likely motives for kidnapping a young child wasn't even raised for most of the series... perhaps so viewers can feel smug for considering it before it was shown to be the motive. The mystery doesn't last the whole series; episode five shows us just what happened before the finale wraps things up. I quite liked this. The characters were interesting with the cast doing a solid job throughout. Overall a solid series that doesn't overstay its welcome; six episodes was just the right length.

These comments are based on watching the series in Spanish with English subtitles.

I actually have no clue why people are giving this bad reviews. First of all, I don't understand how you can compare this to a telenovela. This is nothing like a telenovela. This is an extremely good Spanish version of an American or Nordic thriller series.

I was gripped from start to end, the only thing I would have wished for would be some clarification on certain things. There are a few loopholes.

Someone wrote that they mumble a lot. The Spanish always "mumble", or I'd rather say speak very fast and drop letters, especially those with an Andalucian accent. There is nothing different in this series compared to hearing Spanish people speak to each other in Spain.

Anyway, good series, will keep you excited from start to end.

What more can I say?, if not that this story is as beautifully told as a fine aging wine. From the very first episode, it grips you tight and continues to grow in beauty all the way to the end. It is about determination and not giving up, the tale of how the love of a parent combined with a professional's sens of duty can accomplish big things. I couldn't stop quite honestly, binged it with a few breaks here and there and did not even see the time go by. This is something that I would recommend to anybody who enjoys a good thriller mystery to watch over the weekend. Make yourself a good meal, get some snacks, and drinks, invite a few friends and simple watch this!

I am usually immediately turned off from watching something that is dubbed in English and nothing the actor's say match up but I kept trying to overlook it because I was interested in finding out who did this and also who did that. Clearly nobody is going to be invited to all the award shows BUT that's fine. In my opinion, it was still good enough that I wanted to watch one episode every day until it ended but not too good to where I felt the need to binge watch it too quickly. I don't have a problem with that! I felt like I wanted to leave a review that explains my opinion in case there is someone like me who checks the IMDb rating for a show or movie before they start watching it and they immediately see a good bit of really low rating's. I would say that the series doesn't really deserve that many low rating's but a rating is based on each person's opinion or perspective. I would suggest giving it a try if anyone is on the fence since the ending looks as though they are probably going for a season two.