Orphan

It’s hard to imagine any parent sitting through Orphan without looking away—or walking out. The story of a family whose adoption of an older child goes horribly, horribly awry doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to jeopardizing children, both the characters and the actors playing them.

Vera Farmiga (The Departed) and Peter Sarsgaard (The Mysteries of Pittsburgh) play Kate and John Coleman, a married couple who suffered a stillbirth with their third child. Kate, a recovering alcoholic, still grapples with her grief, but John is ready to move forward on adopting. During their visit to a girls’ home presided over by Sister Abigail (CCH Pounder), they find themselves smitten by Esther (Isabelle Fuhrmann), a nine-year-old Russian orphan with an archaic manner of dress and impeccable manners.

Isabelle Fuhrman as Esther

Esther’s homecoming isn’t as smooth as John and Kate would like. While their deaf daughter Maxine (Aryana Engineer) takes to her new sister immediately, older Daniel (Jimmy Bennett) thinks she’s weird. Kate and John chalk it up to the normal tensions after adoption, and work hard to make Esther feel welcome.

But questions are raised after a girl who bullied Esther ends up with a broken arm, claiming Esther pushed her off a play structure. Kate has her doubts, and a phone call with Sister Abigail brings up some troubling incidents from her past. It seems that no one knows much about Esther’s past, except that the last family who adopted her ended up dead in a house fire. Esther was the only survivor.

While Kate grows more and more suspicious, not to mention fearful for her other children, John becomes Esther’s champion. Their marriage grows fractured as old wounds rear their ugly heads, and Kate’s grip on reality comes under scrutiny—and then Sister Abigail ends up dead.

Vera Farmiga as Kate

The plot of Orphan follows the classic “monster in the house” structure made famous in such movies as Single White Female and The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, coupled with an evil kid straight out of The Bad Seed. There’s not much about the plot that surprises, apart from a twist that would’ve failed were it not for the skillful performances.

Orphan is a cerebral, moody, elegiac horror film that thankfully doesn’t pander to the torture porn crowd. For the most part, it’s well made, though director Jaume Collet-Serra (House of Wax) litters the film with creepy sneakups that lead to empty startles, and the lack of payoff grows tedious after awhile. Farmiga and Sarsgaard bring reality and humanity to their stock roles, and all three of the child actors are fantastic, particularly Fuhrmann.

John (Peter Sarsgaard) has a chat with Esther

However, the film’s treatment of the children is disturbing, to say the least. It’s hard to recall a recent film that’s been so graphic in presenting onscreen violence against children. It’s not uncommon to use children as pawns in a suspense film, but typically audience are spared seeing them actually come to harm. In Orphan, Collet-Serra shocks us with scene after scene where Danny and Maxine are in danger or actually harmed. It’s extremely hard to take.

Even more disturbing is what Collet-Serra requires of Fuhrmann, only 11 years old at the time of filming. It’s not that she’s unable to comprehend that she’s acting—she’s not going to turn into a sociopath just because she played one. But a late plot development requires that Fuhrmann and Sarsgaard play a scene with sexual overtones. It’s necessary to the plot, but Collet-Serra could’ve composed the scene with editing so that audiences filled in the blanks, rather than asking Fuhrmann to make acting choices that should be beyond an 11-year-old’s comprehension and experience. It bears mentioning that Fuhrmann also appeared in Hounddog, a much maligned film from Sundance 2007 where Dakota Fanning was filmed dancing suggestively in her underwear and asked to provide reaction shots for a date rape (that mercifully was composed the way this particular scene from Orphan should’ve been).

Esther seems to be cracking up

There has been a much-publicized outcry against Orphan on behalf of adoption advocacy groups, and it’s easy to understand why. However, the horror genre in film and literature has always plumbed the depths of our collective anxieties. Because film, unlike literature, is such a visually intense medium, these anxieties become more immediate and threatening, particularly when children are involved. Adoption shouldn’t be a taboo subject for exploration, because it does involve bringing an outsider into a family’s inner sanctum, and it seems unlikely that people will write off the whole concept just because of one film.

From the most horrific birth scene ever committed to film, to a drawn-out ending confrontation, Orphan is a mostly successful horror film. But because of the subject matter and filming style, only the toughest viewers will be able to stomach what comes in between. It’s sad to see such great performances in service of a film that mistakes gimmicky shock for elucidating terror.

Talk About It

Discussion starters

What responsibilities does a director have toward child actors?
Do you feel called by God to adopt? Why or why not?
How does Scripture use adoption to explain our relationship to God? How does God behave toward us when we act as Esther does?

The Family Corner

For parents to consider

Orphan is rated R for disturbing violent content, some sexuality and language. Strong sexual content includes one graphic sex scene and one implied sex scene. The children utter profanity, as do the adults. The violence is unflinching. The character of Esther carries a Bible, and is mocked as “Jesus freak”—though she does not ever identify herself as a Christian, mercifully.