The Orphan – Blu-ray Review

DVD Reviews

By Jeff Swindoll Nov 3, 2009, 10:29 GMT

“There’s something wrong with Esther” - damn straight.

Kate (Vera Farmiga) and John (Peter Sarsgaard) Coleman’s marriage is strained. They have two kids, deaf daughter Max (Aryana Engineer) and her older brother Daniel (Jimmy Bennett), but their third child was stillborn. This put Kate into a spiral of depression and alcoholism that caused her to lose her job and is in therapy to combat her demons. The couple is visiting a local orphanage run by Sister Abigail (CCH Pounder) and decides to adopt nine-year-old Russian girl Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman).

Bringing a new child into their home is supposed to alleviate the strain in their marriage and the loss of their child, but Esther’s presence turns out to be a dark one as she begins to manipulate the family. She also hides a startling secret. You know you’re in for horrific trouble just by looking at the poster. The kid is from the “old country” and looks like a younger version of Frau Blucher from Young Frankenstein (minus the mole, but you can add that with a magic marker). Adoption can be a potentially scary process due to red tape and long wait times, but in other ways you may not know of the parentage of the child you’re getting. The film takes that to the extreme, earning the ire of many adoption groups, but if you’re one to believe in behavior being in the genes and not in environment you could be adopting a potential time bomb. I believe in adoption and would encourage couples to go that route, but even supporters might have to admit that those thoughts are in the back of their minds. Again, not that it should discourage anyone from adopting. The adoption groups might also been complaining because the film was a misfire though. There are some suspenseful moments, but a final act reveal will either have you shivering or giggling.

I can’t say that the problem is with the acting since everyone performs admirably. The problem is that the film stretches its plot for two hours and the attempts at manipulation by director Jaume Collett-Serra, whose other foray into horror was the House of Wax remake, are far too obvious to be effective. There are several times when character open and close doors or mirrors and you expect a jump scare. The “killer kid” genre is not a large one but other films have covered the ground more successfully. The Bad Seed is a classic of this small genre. Esther’s final reveal is more akin to Nicholas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now. The Orphan is presented in a 1080p high definition transfer (1.78:1). Special features include the 15-minute, high definition “Bad Seeds and Evil Kids” that details our pint-sized villain and other cinematic child chillers. Next are 4 minutes of deleted scenes in standard definition that include an alternate ending. The disc is also BD-Live enhanced. Disc two is a digital copy of the film. The Orphan may put some folks off adoption, especially Russian kids who look like they come from Transylvania. There are some chills and scares, but the final reveal will either shock you or reduce you to fits of laughter.