Firebreak (Cortafuego) puts a grieving family to the test with a forest fire and watches what fear and stress does to them.

Firebreak begins with a family arriving at a beautiful home in the forest. Mara (Belén Cuesta) is there to clear it out to sell. Her husband loved the place and had a workshop/studio in the back. He recently died and she is angry he didn’t fight harder to survive for her and their 8 year old daughter Lide (Candela Martínez).

Mara throws away photographs and art her husband made that she will surely regret later, but right now she’s not thinking straight.

Mara’s brother-in-law Luis (Joaquín Furriel), his wife Elena (Diana Gómez), and their son Dani (Mika Arias) are there to help her.

Nearby lives Santi (Enric Auquer), the ranger. He’s a little odd, but seems nice, and helps them when he can.

A fire starts. It’s miles away but they decide to evacuate anyway. Lide gets upset because her mother hurries her to leave. She doesn’t think she’s had a chance to say a proper goodbye to her dad yet. Lide runs off to a cabin – it’s really just a bunch of sticks tied into the shape of a house where the children play – and creates a little altar for her dad.

When the car is packed and they are ready to leave, they realize Lide is nowhere to be found. They call the police who come to search for her. The police have a dog. The whole family and Santi comb the woods. Even with the dog, she can’t be found. The fire moves toward them. The police give up the search and tell Mara and her family to leave.

They continue to search. They find something of Lide’s that convinces them that Santi did something with her. They ransack his house, tie him up. pummel him. He insists he doesn’t know where she is.

There is so much to unpack in Mara and Luis’s fixation that Santi knows where the girl is. The fear, the guilt, the need to blame, a lack of understanding – it all comes together in a way that brings both Mara and Luis to the brink. It’s a terrifying mix of fire, smoke, and desperation.

Firebreak takes a fascinating look at what it means to be human. Where is the line between civilized and savage? Who will cross it and who cannot?

The fire looked absolutely real and the music was meant to keep up the tension. It all worked together beautifully with the powerful performances this ensemble of actors gave.

If your nervous system can take an edge-of-your-seat thriller, this one is good and carries interesting psychological questions with it. You can see it on Netflix.