Kate and John visit an orphanage and fall in love with Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman), a bright, articulate, and polite nine-year old. The couple's deaf daughter, Max (Aryana Engineer), is eager for a sister, while their son, Daniel (Jimmy Bennett), is less enthusiastic. Kate has a history of problems with alcohol abuse, but those appear to be behind her. The parents are Kate and John Coleman (Vera Farmiga and Peter Sarsgaard), who are looking for a third child in the wake of the stillborn death of a daughter. The story, which has been understandably denounced by family service organizations around the country, involves loving parents adopting a child who turns out to be a homicidal lunatic - not exactly an advertisement for adoption. But that's fresh paint on a termite-infested wall. I guess the nicest thing I can say about it is that there are some competent performances and Collet-Sera does a decent job of establishing atmosphere. It would have helped, I suppose, if it wasn't so interminable or if the screenplay had shown a scintilla of intelligence. The premise alone is enough to raise concerns but the smarmy, indelicate manner in which director Jaume Collet-Sera handles the material makes Orphan difficult to sit through. Think The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, except this time the wacko is a little girl instead of a nanny. It's more of a standard thriller in the "evil amongst us" mode, about a group of people who inadvertently admit a psychopath into their midst. Orphan is being marketed as a horror movie, but that's misdirection.
#ORPHAN MOVIES MOVIE#
Sure, anything is game in a movie if there's a reason for it, but in Orphan, it seems like the reason is gratuitous titillation. In the end, there's a "reason" that's supposed to defuse arguments about this, but it feels more like a cop-out - a way that the movie can have its rancid cake and eat it, too. Rather, it has to do with issues of child-on-child violence and pedophilia that the screenplay skirts. It has nothing to do with seeing a bird flattened by a brick or seeing a girl place her arm in a vice and snap the bone.
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and running length, and this is a long movie. One senses an inverse relationship between I.Q. Well-placed, these sudden jolts can be effective, but is Peter Sarsgaard's face in a mirror worth one? The way they're used in Orphan is indicative of desperation, and they're one of the least evident problems with a screenplay that gets more stupid with every passing moment. The first indications that we're not in the hands of a competent storyteller arrive with several early, unnecessary "boo!" moments. Sadly, the hope for something Hitchcockian fades quickly. Putting aside a needlessly grotesque dream sequence that opens the movie, Orphan looks for a few fleeting moments like it might be a clever psychological thriller - the kind in which the audience is never quite sure whether the events on screen are happening as they're shown or whether they are being distorted through the perception of an unreliable narrator.