Orphan (DVD)
APPROX. 123 MINS. - PROD. YEAR: 2009 - MPA RATING: R
" ...more concerned with producing cheap thrills and melodramatic effects than creating any sense of mystery or suspense.
Connect to Facebook/Twitter, recommend via email and much more.
The last really good supernatural thriller I watched was "The Orphanage" from Warner/New Line in 2007, so it's probably no coincidence that WB titled their 2009 demon-child tale "Orphan." The film is a pretty ordinary entry in the evil-youngster genre popularized over half a century ago by Ray Bradbury in his short story "The Small Assassin," followed by movies like "The Bad Seed," "Rosemary's Baby," "The Omen," and "The Good Son." Indeed, not only is "Orphan" ordinary, about the only controversy surrounding it came from various people concerned that the film gave orphans a bad name. Yeah, well, in the same way that ghost stories give ghosts a bad name. Still, it was enough controversy to prompt Warners to preface the movie with a disclaimer reminding audiences that the characters in the film are fictional, not real children. Fair enough.
It's too bad the studio didn't warn us in advance about how frustrating the picture was going to be. Now, that would have been useful. As it is, the film may well infuriate you more than it scares you. It actually made me long for a good, old-fashioned slasher flick, which at least makes no pretense of being anything more than a gore fest. "Orphan" takes itself so seriously, you'd think the filmmakers were working on "Citizen Kane."
The movie is not only ordinary, it's fairly predictable, too, the director, Jaume Collet-Serra ("House of Wax"), generally following the standard demon-child formula. Even the frights seem predictable, like the tricks with a bathroom mirror or the ominous music when somebody so much as opens a refrigerator.
The story involves a husband and wife, Kate and John Coleman (Vera Farmiga and Peter Sarsgaard), who adopt a nine-year-old girl. The mother says she needs another daughter to replace the one who died in childbirth, to give the adopted daughter all the love she felt for the one she lost. I'm not sure what this says about her feelings for her other two young children, Daniel (Jimmy Bennett) and Max (Aryana Engineer).
The Colemans adopt Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman) from a local orphanage, and from the beginning she appears too good to be true: bright and charming and innocent, but just a little odd. She seems to exult in being "different." It seems Esther originally came from somewhere in Russia, the family who brought her to America mysteriously dying in a house fire.
The Colemans are well off, the father a successful architect and the mother a pianist and composer, their residence, a huge architectural gem overlooking a valley, attesting to their affluence. They are well able to provide for another child and are more than willing to give Esther all their love.
But things are not always as they appear. About a third of the way into the movie, we begin to see Esther's darker side, with weird and evil deeds escalating fast. For instance, Esther seems to know more about sex and dirty words than a typical nine-year-old, and she spies on her new parents making love. We know Esther is getting creepier by the minute because every time she's up to something no good, storms burst forth with lightning and thunder.
