“‘That's life, that's life.' This refrain of a cheerful old Romanian song echoes over the gloomy wedding of a mother bride at the end of Forest Fruit. The mood is one of contrived merriment...From the rather hackneyed theme of the innocent country girl seduced and abandoned by an urban Don Juan--a subject frequently exploited by Romanian cinema between the two world wars--director Alexandru Tatos has managed to create not so much a melodrama as a poetic portrait of one woman's dignity. This ‘fallen angel,' the 17-year-old Amalia, who eventually marries out of sheer respect for social convention, is certainly one of the most appealing female characters ever to come out of the Romanian cinema (and Manuela Boboc, a non-professional, gives a stunning performance). Her sentimental deceit gives way to the malicious portrayal of a micro-world in which the sublime exists alongside the sordid, in which purity is matched by decadence and innocence by cynicism because, after all, ‘That's Life.' At once tender and ironic, lyrical and sarcastic, Forest Fruit offers a poignant vision of real life.” Manuela Cernat, International Film Guide '85