This is Why You Should Never Trust Kids: Orphan (2009)

Puneet is on vacation, so I didn't have a movie picked by him this week. Seeing as I had another day to pick whatever movie I wanted, and since I had been talking about Insidious with people at work today, I was in the mood for a freaky creepy movie. I wanted to see the first Saw movie, but I don't have that right now, so I decided to watch Orphan which I've heard is really good. I had some thoughts/ideas about what this movie was about before I went into it. Ideas that were the primary reason why I picked it for today. Curious as to what I'm talking about? Then hit the jump as I continue my tale.



Now I was somehow under the impression that this movie was supernatural in nature. Let me just clear that up for anyone out there that may be thinking the same thing, it isn't. Not at all. So I was a little confused while watching when nothing of a demonic nature ever happened. I waited and waited for something spiritual or haunted to happen. Maybe even a little possession. But no, nothing of the sort happened. It wasn't until it was quite far in the plot, nearly the end in fact, when I had to resign myself to the idea that maybe, just maybe, this movie had nothing to do with anything like that. Bummer.

What it IS about is a family who recently suffered a still-birth, and some time later decide to adopt a girl. They meet and adopt young Esther, a 9-year-old girl from Russia. I guess there's not much else to the story other than it turns out she's kinda psycho and the father of the family, played by Peter Sarsgaard, simply never sees it or believes it, and it's up to the mother, played by Vera Farmiga, to protect her family. Too bad she's had some drinking incidents in the past.

Isabelle Fuhrman as Esther the titular orphan

Here's a problem I had with the film, and you can take it however you like. Orphan just seemed really long to me. It just seemed to drag on and on, trying to show you how mean she was, and it was at the point I just wanted to say "Ok, I get it, can we move on now?" I'm not sure if this was a pacing issue, or if it was just because I kept thinking "When is the demonic stuff going to start?" which of course it was never going to. But even now looking back at it, probably one or two scenes could have been taken out and it wouldn't have really affected the film. On the other hand, when the shit hits the fan at the end of the movie, things start moving at lightning speed and suddenly it's over. But MAN was that ending good!

As for the acting, I guess it was pretty good. The mother, Vera Farmiga, was good, but I wasn't a big fan of Peter Sarsgaard who played the father. The kids were actually really good, from Isabelle Fuhrman who played the titular orphan, to Jimmy Bennett who was the son. Even little Aryana Engineer was really good. She played the youngest daughter who was also deaf, which added an interesting and unexpected element to the movie.

Overall, the movie had a really slow burn and seemed to dawdle a little, but the plot was actually pretty good and for a cast filled with kids which could have been terrible, the acting was really good. Hanging over ALL of that, is a crazy, awesome, wtf did I just watch kind of ending that made up for any complaints I had. Check it out if you like a good thriller.