Orphan is a 2009 American horror film directed by Jaume Collet-Serra and starring Vera Farmiga, Peter Sarsgaard and Isabelle Fuhrman. The film centers on a couple who, after the death of their unborn child, adopt a young girl who is hiding a dark secret behind her sweet façade. Orphan was produced by Joel Silver and Susan Downey of Dark Castle Entertainment and Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Davisson Killoran of Appian Way Productions.[2] The film was released theatrically in the United States on July 24, 2009.[3]
Plot
Kate (Vera Farmiga) and John Coleman (Peter Sarsgaard) are experiencing strains in their marriage after Kate's third child was stillborn. The loss is particularly hard on Kate, who is still recovering from a drinking habit that cost her her job. They adopt Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman), a 9-year-old Russian girl they had met, from the local orphanage. While Kate and John's daughter Max (Aryana Engineer), who is mute and communicates with sign language, embraces Esther almost immediately, their son Daniel (Jimmy Bennett) is somewhat less welcoming.
Kate grows suspicious when Esther, who watched Kate and John have sex, expresses far more knowledge of sex and its slang than would be expected for a child her age. Not long after Esther arrives, she pushes a schoolmate who had picked on her off a playground slide, breaking her ankle. Max saw Esther shove the girl, but covers for Esther by saying that the girl slipped. However, Kate is further alarmed when Sister Abigail (CCH Pounder), the head of the orphanage, warns her and John about Esther's tendency to be around when things go wrong. Esther overhears this and later kills Sister Abigail with a hammer to the head. She forces Max to help her hide the body and the hammer. Daniel sees Esther and Max descending from his treehouse from behind a rock, not knowing they hid the hammer there. Later that night, Esther threatens Daniel with genital mutilation if he tells anyone what he saw.
Kate is told that the Russian orphanage Esther came from has no record of her ever being there. However, John does not believe her, despite continued ominous behavior by Esther. At one point, Esther breaks her own arm in John's vise and convinces John that Kate broke it. On Esther's first day back at school, she slips Kate's SUV into neutral, nearly killing Max. Badly shaken, Kate buys two bottles of wine, but at the last minute pours one of them down the drain and leaves the other full.
Kate learns that Esther was housed at a mental institution in Estonia called the Saarne Institute, but when she expresses misgivings to John, he and her counselor think that Kate is relapsing into her drinking habit. After John produces the other bottle Kate bought the night before, he threatens to leave her unless she gets help.
Daniel learns of the hammer from Max and decides to get it and go to the police. However, Esther sets the treehouse on fire, intending to get rid of the evidence and kill Daniel. Daniel escapes by falling out of the tree, severely injuring his neck. Esther tries to finish him off by smashing a brick over his head, but Max shoves her out of the way just in time. Esther again tries to kill him at the hospital by smothering him with a pillow. As doctors rush to save Daniel, Kate angrily knocks Esther down, and is sedated by doctors.
That night, Esther tries to seduce a drunk John. John realizes Kate was telling the truth all along and threatens to call the orphanage, but Esther stabs him to death. Max witnesses this and hides in her laundry hamper.
As Kate is coming out of sedation, she gets a call from the Saarne Institute's director, Dr. Värava (Karel Roden), who reveals that Esther isn't a 9-year-old girl at all, but a 33-year-old woman named Leena Klammer. She has hypopituitarism, a disorder that stunted her physical growth, and has spent most of her life posing as a little girl. The doctor tells Kate that Leena is dangerously psychotic, and warns her to protect her family. Kate rushes home, where Leena shoots her in the arm before searching for Max.
Their chase takes them outside to a frozen pond, where Kate and Leena struggle before falling through a hole in the ice. Kate crawls out of the hole, followed by Leena, who begs for her life, addressing Kate as "Mommy". Kate angrily responds that she is not her mother, and kicks Leena in the face, breaking her neck and sending her back into the pond to drown.
Cast
Production
The film was mostly shot in Canada, in the cities of Toronto, Port Hope and Montreal.[2]
Release
Controversy
The film's content of a murderous adopted child has not been well received by the adoption community.[4] The controversy has already caused filmmakers to change a line in one of their trailers from "It must be difficult to love an adopted child as much as your own," to "I don’t think Mommy likes me very much."[5] Melissa Fay Greene of The Daily Beast commented:
"The movie Orphan comes directly from this unexamined place in popular culture. Esther’s shadowy past includes Eastern Europe; she appears normal and sweet, but quickly turns violent and cruel, especially toward her mother. These are clichés. This is the baggage with which we saddle abandoned, orphaned, or disabled children given a fresh start at family life."[6]
Reception
Critical reaction to Orphan has been mixed, with the film earning a rating of 56% (43% among the Top Critics) on Rotten Tomatoes,[7] where the consensus is: "While it has moments of dark humor and the requisite scares, Orphan fails to build on its interesting premise and degenerates into a formulaic, sleazy horror/thriller". It also earned a 42 out of 100 on Metacritic.[8] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave Orphan 3½ stars out of 4, writing: "You want a good horror film about a child from hell, you got one."[9] Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle also gave a positive review, saying: "Orphan provides everything you might expect in a psycho-child thriller, but with such excess and exuberance that it still has the power to surprise."[10]
Todd McCarthy, of Variety, was less impressed, writing: "Teasingly enjoyable rubbish through the first hour, Orphan becomes genuine trash during its protracted second half."[11] Manohla Dargis of The New York Times wrote, "Actors have to eat like the rest of us, if evidently not as much, but you still have to wonder how the independent film mainstays Vera Farmiga and Peter Sarsgaard ended up wading through Orphan and, for the most part, not laughing."[12] Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a D+ score, saying, "Orphan isn't scary — it's garish and plodding."[13]
Openly (and at times vehemently) negative reviews are abundant: from "galling, distasteful trash" (Eric D. Snider)[14] to "old-fashioned and trashy horror flick" (Emanuel Levy)[15] and "relentlessly bad", albeit "entertaining" (Rob Vaux).[16] According to Dennis Schwartz of Ozus' World Movie Reviews, "The problem with Orphan isn't merely that the film is idiotic--it's that it's also sleazy, formulaic and repellant."[17] And according to Keith Phipps from The A.V. Club, "If director Jaume Collet-Serra set out to make a parody of horror-film clichés, he succeeded brilliantly."[18]
Although the film received mixed reviews, Isabelle Fuhrman's performance was acclaimed and positively received. Emanuel Levy said of Fuhrman "acquites herself with a strong performance, affecting a rather convincing Russian accent and executing sheer evil with an admirable degree of calm and earnestness."[19] Todd McCarthy proclaims that Fuhrman (as well as Bennett and Engineer) is terrific and that she "makes Esther calmly beyond reproach even when faced with monumental evidence against her, and has the requisite great evil eye."[20] Mick LaSalle continues in that Fuhrman "steals the show" and that she "injects nuance into this portrayal, as well as an arch spirit."[21] And as said by Roger Ebert, she "is not going to be convincing as a nice child for a long, long time."[22]
The film was the #4 film at the box office for its opening weekend, making $12.77 million total, behind G-Force, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and The Ugly Truth respectively. As of August 11, 2009 the film has grossed a total of $35,399,764.[23]
PETER TRAVERS - August 26, 2009 
PETER TRAVERS - August 13, 2009 
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