Orphan review
Hello everyone and welcome to my blog. For those who know me you know about my love for horror films so once a month I’m going to review and discuss a scary flick. We’ll look at the classics, some new films, and I want your suggestions on what I should review. I’ll do my best to cover all the different genres within the genre – slashers, ghosts, monsters, etc.
SPOILER ALERT! – These will be reviews so if you haven’t seen the movie you’ll want to watch it first before you read this. Let’s do this.
ORPHAN
Isn’t it a great idea to adopt a little girl from Eastern Europe? Well, if her name is Esther from the film Orphan then NO. It would be the worst idea. Unless of course you want a deranged killer who wants to burn down your house. That might be your thing. I love movies about evil children. I really like The Good Son but the classics are of course the Bad Seed and you have to love The Omen. Films like that leave a bad taste with people though and you always have to wonder about the psyche of the kids who play these roles moving ahead. Quite frankly I think I’ll take Damien from The Omen any day over Esther from Orphan. Probably the scariest evil kid I’ve seen.
Orphan is a 2009 film from Jaume Collet-Serra. I recorded it on my DVR almost a year ago and decided to watch it a few weeks ago. One of the better decisions I’ve made in awhile. Loved it. Orphan is about a family – Vera Farmiga and Peter Sarsgaard and their two children who had a stillborn third child and decide now to adopt. The family isn’t perfect. Kate, the mother, has had some alcohol problems and the father John had an eye for the ladies in the past. At an orphanage, Kate and John meet 9-year-old Esther. She’s all by herself painting when they meet her. She seems nice, they like her so they decide to adopt her. Even though there isn’t much info on where she came from. When she first arrives at her new home she is greeted enthusiastically by daughter Max (who is deaf) but not so much from son Daniel. That’s okay. Esther has everything all planned out for how to adjust to her new family! She’s polite and intelligent and seems to really enjoy her new family. She would never hurt anyone right? After a few weeks, Sister Abigail from the orphanage pays the family a visit. Kate and John explain how Esther supposedly pushed a girl off the jungle jim (she did) which resulted in the girl breaking her ankle. Abigail mentions bad things always seemed to happen around Esther. Esther hears this and makes one of her first twisted moves. She grabs Max and they head down to a little bridge near the house and wait for Sister Abigail as she drives home. As she approaches Esther pushes Max in front of Abigail’s car. After Abigail gets out to see what happened Esther bashes her head in with a hammer. Okay this little girl is sick. She hides the evidence in Daniel’s tree house and lets Max know if she rats her out she’s next. Things start to get deranged after this. She has a conversation with John mentioning she doesn’t think Kate likes her very much. He suggests doing something nice for her so she does by giving her new Mom some flowers. How sweet. Oh yeah, she dug up the roses from the grave of their stillborn child that they keep in their greenhouse. Now you start to see how awful this little girl is and she really starts to crank it up. After Kate grabs her by the arm she sneaks into the garage and breaks that arm in a vice to make it look like it was Kate’s fault. She puts a car in neutral on a hill with Just Max in it. When Daniel finds out that Esther hid the evidence she used to kill Sister Abigail in the tree house he goes to recover it. She burns in down and he is seriously injured. Then she does her best to kill him in the hospital. Kate knows, freaks out and has to be sedated by the staff. Back at home John is boozing his problems away when Esther decides to hit on her father. What? In the hospital Kate comes to and gets the answers she had been looking for. The orphanage she reached out to for info on her adopted daughter is actually a mental hospital. Oh yeah, Esther isn’t a 9-year-old girl either. She’s a 33-year-old woman with a condition that stunts her growth. She’s been posing as a child and murdered a family that adopted her in Estonia. As Kate rushes to get home, Esther – or her real name, which is Leena – cuts the power to the house and savagely stabs John to death. Kate gets home and is able to save Max and shoots Leena but doesn’t kill her. The ending wasn’t amazing but kind of what you’d expect. The fight to the death between Kate and Leena in the icy pond has its moments and when she calls her “mommy” one last time before Kate finally kills her is a good ending.
Actress Isabelle Fuhrman plays Esther who was if I do the math right, about 11 or 12 at the time. She’s outstanding in this role. Totally has the innocent, cute little girl persona down. Casting could not have done a better job. Vera Farmiga is good in everything she does. I loved her in the Bates Motel series on A&E which you should watch. This isn’t the greatest movie ever but I loved the story and the reveal of who Esther really is. I’ll admit that I thought at first she was actually the reincarnation if you will of the couple’s stillborn child. Finding out she’s actually a grown woman was a pretty good move though. This psycho pretending to be a little girl and the way she uses people’s weaknesses is well done. No one thinks this poor little girl that needs a home would hurt anyone. Once Kate sees how evil she is no one will listen to her. Everyone blames Kate’s past drinking problems for the reason she says these things about Esther. As the audience you see this and are saying to the screen “No! this little girl is CRAZY!!. Why doesn’t anyone see that!” I suppose its cliché that Esther comes from Eastern Europe right? We always associate that part of the world with mystery and horror. Orphan is definitely worth a watch I think. The subject matter isn’t for everyone but as I said earlier, for my money Esther is probably the scariest evil child I’ve seen in a movie.
Enjoy the trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ywOPNNii9w