I was about to watch Gaspar Noe’s Vortex based on some positive reviews, but somehow I ended up hooked on this French mini TV series I hadn’t even heard of before. I might have gotten caught in a little vortex there. 🙂 Luckily, it turned out to be a satisfying watch, packing in almost everything I was after: romance, time travel, and police procedural elements, all in full swing.

The 2022 French mini-series Vortex, directed by Slimane-Baptiste Berhoun, follows a police officer who reconnects with his late wife thanks to a virtual reality glitch. He attempts to shed light on the mysterious accident that took her life 27 years earlier. Across the six episodes, we navigate between 1998 and 2025, and what really grabs you is the butterfly effect—a concept we know from films like Back to the Future and, well, The Butterfly Effect. Changing something in the past inevitably has consequences in the present, creating a powerful dilemma for the main character, especially when considering the fact that we usually have to let go of the past to have what we have now.

Apparently, this series is the brainchild of the acclaimed French author Franck Tilliez. Iris Bucher, one of the producers, reveals in an interview that Tilliez initially cooked up this concept as a crime series with looped episodes. However, when it wasn’t picked up by various broadcasters, the project was put on hold for about seven years. (I feel the frustration, Tilliez!) Given a second chance, and with Tilliez unavailable, screenwriters Camille Couasse and Sarah Farkas took over, introducing juicy elements like a love triangle and virtual reality. France 2 committed to the development, and after being broadcasted there, it’s now streaming on Netflix.

It reminds me of the 2000 movie Frequency, where a son reconnects with his late father through radio waves. Seems like technology evolves, but our itch to fix the past remains steadfast.