Orphan
Movie Review
"Orphan"
Review by Eric D. Snider
Grade: D
Rating: R
Released: Friday, July 24, 2009
Directed by:
Cast:
Let's say you go into "Orphan" expecting a scary story about an evil girl who gets adopted into an unwitting family. In that scenario, you will be disappointed. There are no real scares in the film, only the "ha ha, made you jump!" kind, including a large number of instances where the sound effects and musical score make you think something will happen and then literally nothing happens. Moreover, the story is formulaic and bland, right up until the point when it becomes laughable, using a twist that I distinctly recall from an episode of "Law & Order: SVU."
So let's say that instead you go into "Orphan" hoping for something campy that you can giggle at. The film would be suitable for those purposes -- and you could make a case for that having been the filmmakers' intent -- except that the director, Jaume Collet-Serra ("House of Wax"), has seen fit to include brutal, graphic violence and several scenes of young children being injured, threatened, or traumatized. We're having a good time, laughing at the cheesy "thriller," and then whoops! Here's a 9-year-old beating someone to death with a hammer, in graphic, splattery detail, while a horrified little girl watches! Yay!
That kind of takes the fun of out it, doesn't it?
The film begins in a tacky enough fashion, with a grotesque nightmare sequence in which Kate Coleman (Vera Farmiga) relives the anguish of having had a stillborn child a couple years ago. She and her husband, John (Peter Sarsgaard), have two other children, Daniel (Jimmy Bennett), who's about 10, and Maxine (Aryana Engineer), who's about 6. Max, as she's known, is deaf but, as is the case with 100 percent of deaf characters in movies, is an excellent lip-reader. (The cherubic young actress who plays her is deaf, too.)
The Colemans want to adopt a child as a replacement for the dead one (or something), and the kid they choose, from a Catholic orphanage, is Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman), a solemn, 9-year-old Russian with dark hair, pale skin, and the fashion sense of a polygamist wife. Esther is a talented painter who enjoys solitude, which is good, since the other orphans think she's weird and avoid her. She opens up to John and Kate and, without bothering to introduce her to Daniel and Max first, they bring her home.
Esther immediately learns sign language and bonds with the open-hearted Max, turning the smiling little girl into an unwilling co-conspirator when Esther starts doing terrible things. The terrible things don't begin right away -- first Esther needs to glare menacingly at a lot of people -- but once they do begin, boy howdy. This is not one of those films where mysterious things happen and we're not sure whether the obvious suspect is really the culprit or not. No, we get to witness everything Esther does firsthand. She's not some wimpy demon spawn, either, causing mild injuries or annoyances. She will straight up KILL YOU.
Since Kate is the film's true protagonist in first-timer David Johnson's screenplay, she gets to be the one person who realizes Esther is evil. (Well, Daniel and Max know it, too, but Esther convinces them that their own lives are in danger if they tattle.) Concerned for the safety of her other children, Kate does some serious googling, including the phrase "children who kill." John, who is kind of an unsupportive bastard, thinks Esther is just misunderstood, and his and Kate's marriage suffers. Even when Sister Abigail (CCH Pounder) comes from the orphanage to report some irregularities in Esther's backstory, John dismisses them. A psychiatrist (Margo Martindale) interviews Esther for an hour and determines the girl is fine and Kate's the one who needs fixing. Which is funny, because I could have spent five minutes with Esther and known she was a psychopath, and I'm not even a psychiatrist.
This endless series of cliches and recycled plot points is dumb but tolerable, I suppose, particularly if you go into it expecting kitsch. (Heaven help you if you thought this would actually be smart, suspenseful, or scary.) Vera Farmiga and creepy young Isabelle Fuhrman give passionate but thankless performances, and Collet-Serra is competent in the functional aspects of filmmaking.
Where he is tone-deaf and oblivious, however, is in the elements I mentioned earlier. In a movie, aiming a gun at a child is a cheap way of raising the stakes. Putting the gun into a child's hand and requiring him or her to pull the trigger is tasteless. Forcing a young innocent to witness the brutal murder of a loved one -- in a movie intended to offer silly, shallow thrills -- is inexcusably cruel.
From a plot standpoint, there is no reason the character had to be present and conscious when these things happened. (I'm trying to avoid outright spoilers.) In victimizing children the way it does, the film crosses a line -- and not in a cool, taboo-busting sort of way but dumbly, as if Collet-Serra didn't realize the line was even there. And that's the really alarming part: that he apparently saw no distinction between a grisly horror flick like "Hostel," where ignoring the boundaries of good taste is part of the package, and an Evil Child Movie, where it is not. This is galling, distasteful trash. I hope the children involved in making it are never permitted to watch it.
Grade: D
Rated R, brief strong sexuality, some brutal violence and terror, a smattering of F-bombs
2 hrs., 3 min.
Copyright © Eric D. Snider.
This work may not be transmitted via the Internet, nor reproduced in any other way, without written consent from Eric D. Snider.
This item has 27 comments
July 24, 2009 at 6:00 am
Best part of your review only comes in your In The Dark emailed version, with the suggested things to buy:
BUY "THE OMEN" (THE ORIGINAL):
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000EYK4KS/thelandoferic
Logical evil child connection.
BUY "DR. SPOCK'S BABY AND CHILD CARE," 8th EDITION:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0743476670/thelandoferic
LOL! Awesome :-D
July 24, 2009 at 8:23 am
As if there is need of another reason to hate this movie, the fact that the girl was adopted is a hot-bed issue in some circles. I've had conversation with a number of parents who are outraged for the way this movie perpetuates the myth that adopting a child is always risky with regard to the potential for behavior issues. Suspension of disbelief being what it is, I understand their anger at a film that underscores the idea so dramatically.
July 24, 2009 at 10:23 am
Adopting parents are upset? oh no!
Loggers hate Friday the 13th, and the poor texans with TCM!!!
get over it already. if you're so damn sensitive what are you doing at a horror movie anyway?
July 24, 2009 at 12:03 pm
Damien called and he would like his Omen back...
July 24, 2009 at 6:46 pm
Wait a minute--the parents in this movie actually ARE named John and Kate?? Worst idea EVER!
July 24, 2009 at 8:46 pm
No, seriously, I saw BOTH episodes of Law and Order and Law and Order:SVU that also used the twist used in this movie. The TV episodes were only an hour long and slightly plausible. But if you believe that the twist in this movie could ever happen to a real adopted child then you should not have children anyway.
July 24, 2009 at 10:17 pm
Okay, I'm not seeing this movie. I like scary, but I don't like cruel or graphic. Eric, I'll ask you some specific questions next time I talk to you.
That is a funny coincidence that their names are John and Kate.
July 25, 2009 at 4:59 am
I don't get viewers like you, Eric. Obviously you're not a horror fan. When a horror movie shocks, upsets, and disturbs you, you trash it. Some would rather have tame PG-13 horror that follows the rules, where children are invincible, the good guys always win, etc. Because the director actually subverted conventions and tried something different, you trash it, because it doesn't follow your ethics. I thought that the film, in at least one instance, pulled its punches. And I applaud it for the reasons you hated it. How do you know what the director intended? All you know is what you expect from this kind of film. I'd much rather see a taboo-breaking film then a neutered, cliched film.
July 25, 2009 at 11:57 am
Andrew, you are a doofus! Eric D Snider has recommended a number of hard R horror movies before, like the original Hostel for instance. And there is a BIG difference between a horror movie that is "Shocking" and "Disturbing" and one that is just simply vile and distateful. I agree with Eric that Orphan falls into the latter category (although his D grade is, in my book, way too high). It is not scary and not entertaining at all, and he goes into great detail about why he hated the movie other than the fact that it was distasteful.
Before you insult the man Andrew, try reading his review first!
July 25, 2009 at 1:13 pm
Hey Andrew, if you want an example of how totally and completely wrong you are, check this review out: http://www.ericdsnider.com/movies/funny-games/. If not, continue on in blissful ignorance. Good day to you.
July 26, 2009 at 10:51 am
"And there is a BIG difference between a horror movie that is "Shocking" and "Disturbing" and one that is just simply vile and distateful."
Not really, although your opinions might be different what constitutes shocking/disturbing as not distasteful. That is why I don't like ANY horror (i.e. slasher) movies. They are all distasteful and disgusting from the starting gate of their very existence. Perhaps Orphan really is a "cool, taboo-busting movie" since it made someone upset who thinks "Hostel" or perhaps "Saw Part One Million" are just fine and not distasteful. I do think that the movie maker of Orphan should be charged with child-abuse for using children to depict graphic and unrepentant violence.
August 6, 2009 at 12:03 am
I'm not usually one for horror movies, but I actually liked it. Although, half the time I was clutching my bag to my chest whimpering, "Don't kill Max...Don't kill Max...". I liked up til the end. It looked fake.
August 9, 2009 at 7:03 pm
after reading this - everyone except andrew has made me sick.
i wanted to go see this movie tonight and I still think I will. Blogs are for stating opinions - not to decipher right and wrong. The fact that most of you are parents is even more "distasteful". You are the same very people that live your lives through your children. Watch a George Carlin act and he'll fill you in.
As for these reviews - if you liked it tell us why and why not, if you did not like it - tell us the same. Don't ruin this movie for the rest of us who haven't seen it. There I've written my first review and hopefully last. Hopefully in the meantime, you'll grow up and realize every thought you ever had is an OPINION
Yours truly,
Disgusted
August 9, 2009 at 11:15 pm
Oh Dan, THANK YOU!
I've been waiting for anything that could help me be a parent and I'd never thought of turning to George Carlin! It's like you're a miracle worker disguised as a commenter! Here I was in deaf and dumb darkness when you spelled out water!
You're the best*, Dan!
*just an OPINION.
August 9, 2009 at 11:31 pm
"As for these reviews - if you liked it tell us why and why not, if you did not like it - tell us the same. Don't ruin this movie for the rest of us who haven't seen it."
Actually, I like it when reviews give stuff away, I like to know what I'm in for ahead of time.
August 10, 2009 at 6:34 am
Thanks for your comments Dan. I don't think anyone here knew what a blog was for until you shared those words of wisdom. May we all learn from your infinite intelligence.
August 10, 2009 at 9:17 am
Every thought I've ever had is an opinion? Man. Now I *really* regret all those years studying math.
August 10, 2009 at 1:54 pm
@Dawn: Word.
August 15, 2009 at 9:47 am
I really liked this movie. I thought it did stick to the cardinal rules of scary movies by not killing max and it was quite suspensful. Obviously, it is not for everyone. As for the cute littlw opinion argument you are having: no, not every thought is an opionion but a lot are. Mostly, it sounds like you all need to get off you high horses and stop taking offense just because someone has a different opinion than you. On the other hand I did get a good laugh at the childish conversation that started from watching an evil child movie. :P
August 16, 2009 at 10:39 pm
SPOILERS
This movie was tasteless. I was deeply offended, especially by the evil character's dress-up scene near the end. I don’t enjoy seeing children being portrayed sexually or in such cruel and evil ways, nor did I find enjoyment in seeing children being hurt or scared. It seemed as if the folks who thought up this movie really hates children or perhapes adoption of older children. I felt like crying seeing that young female actress being forced to watch someone (including her father) getting whacked and stabbed multiple times. I rather see kids play more pychological types of scary pics, like the Six Sense. Though it was a bit sad watching the fear and inner torture of that young actor.
August 19, 2009 at 10:06 pm
Ugh. I REALLY wish I had read your review before trying to watch this movie. I walked out. Yucky.
August 20, 2009 at 9:57 am
I thought one of the worst things about the movie had nothing to do at all with the plot of the movie, but the fact that in at least a half a dozen times throughout the film you could see the microphone hanging out at the top of the screen. Terrible!
August 20, 2009 at 10:53 am
Aimee: That is the fault of the projectionist at your theater, not the filmmaker. Roger Ebert has discussed it here (among other places).
September 21, 2009 at 8:53 am
*Agrees with Debbie* Jeez, We should have picked the meatballs movie instead. We barely touched our popcorns while watching this.
December 13, 2009 at 12:04 am
I just watched it, basically just so that I could have a basis for being against it, and, honestly, I was way more disturbed by the graphic cruelty that the child actors were made to portray than the adoption thing. Eric's right: completely tasteless.
January 27, 2010 at 2:28 pm
I liked the movie and wished I saw it in the movie instead of DVD. When I first saw the commercial, I said, "oh brother, another evil child movie. I'll catch it on DVD." My daughter (19) convinced me to rent it. If you thought the girl was going to do bad things or very terrible things and you were still willing to watch it, I don't know why you would be upset because she enlisted help from another little girl. Either way, you were going to sit there and watch a little girl hurt/kill somebody. I'm not condoning child violence, but let's face reality, children DO kill in real life, horribly! Maybe we just don't like to think about it. And if you saw the Omen and had no problem with it, I don't know what to say because that CHILD was evil and was killing everybody! I did feel sorry for Max. The ending was good!
Also, I'm a sign language student, so I was very attentive and excited that I was getting some practice! JUST MY OPINION
August 30, 2010 at 9:12 pm
I see dead people... Red rum red rum, here' s Johnny, I'm sure there's more that are considered classics in the top 100 films and kids were a big part of the movie.