Review of Orphan (2009) by Nick J — 19 Dec 2011

Vera Farmiga and Peter Sarsgaard play two parents who are dealing with the loss of a child who was recently stillborn. They decide to go ahead and adopt a little girl from an area orphanage, where they meet an adorable 9 year old Russian girl named Esther (impressively played by Isabelle Fuhrman). Early on, she seems innocent and unassuming enough, until it is revealed that she has a darker, more sinister side.

First, off, I loved the performances by Farmiga and Fuhrman. Farmiga is very good at playing someone who is in over her head (There was a scene in the film Running Scared, where her son is discovered in the home of a couple of serial child killers and I thought she did an incredible job). Fuhrman was a great villain, and was able to make Esther into a terrific menacing villain, with shades of Hannibal Lector.

What I didn't like? Too many "black cat" scares early on. Have you ever seen a movie, where the hero is looking around an old house, and when they open a closet, *loud sound* *something jumps on screen*, "Oh, it's a cat". There weren't any cats in the movie, mind you. It's more of a general term. At first, the movie tried too much to establish a sense of suspense, which, I thought, took away from the personal drama surrounding the parents and their back story. Eventually, the story gets us to Esther, and it progressively gets better, even if it also gets sillier and plays to the conventions of the "adorable child from hell" genre.

But, I loved the ending. It was one of the biggest shocks I've had at the end of a movie since The Sixth Sense. It's bloody, it's violent, and I thought it was great. Highly recommended.