Botched 'Orphan' adopts shoddy scare tactics
"Orphan" wastes no time in letting us know that we're in the hands of filmmakers who lack the skills and imagination to mount a well-constructed horror tale.
Near the beginning, Kate Coleman (Vera Farmiga) stands in the bathroom with the mirrored medicine cabinet door open. When she closes the door, her husband John (Peter Sarsgaard) suddenly appears in the mirror while the soundtrack plays a jolting noise!
Why? Why try to scare us in a scene where there's nothing scary going on?
Later, as John works at his desk, the camera races up behind him as if someone is attacking him and we're taking the attacker's point of view.
But when John turns around, oops! There's nobody there!
Ha, ha! Those "Orphan" filmmakers sure fooled us, didn't they?
"Orphan" might have just been another botched horror film, except that this one packs a powerful, inventive mystery and a really freaky revelation scene shot in sinister black light, all of which have been squelched by Spanish filmmaker Jaume Collet-Serra's pedantic direction.
(Collet-Serra previously directed the underwhelming 2005 horror remake of "House of Wax," where the scariest part was Paris Hilton's acting.)
Kate and John, after losing their stillborn daughter, decide to adopt a third child as a sibling to little Danny (Jimmy Bennett) and even littler Max (Aryana Engineer), their deaf daughter.
At a Catholic orphanage, the couple meets Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman), an enigmatic little girl with a talent for painting, a passion for wearing ribbons, and a dark, brooding personality.
They adopt her, and the moment Esther arrives at the Coleman's gorgeously designed house, the girl begins a subtle campaign to alienate Kate from her family and to win John's loyalty.
Kate is a recovering alcoholic who nearly killed Max during a drunken stupor. Esther seems to be expert at exploiting Kate's guilt, while using threats and weapons to secure the unquestioned allegiance of Max and Danny.
Kate can't believe has easily John is won over by Esther's perceived vulnerability and the way she affectionately calls him "Daddy."
"Orphan" resembles the classic evil child tale "The Bad Seed," but gives the genre a spiffy twist. But therein lies its principal problem.
Collet-Serra thinks "Orphan" is about an evil child who hammers nuns to death and tries to burn up kids in tree houses.
It's really about a mother's worst nightmare: losing her family to a diabolic intruder who seems to have duped everyone.
Kate is the meatiest, most complex character Farmiga has tackled in her 12-year acting career, and the actress deftly transitions from a loving parent to a protective, feral mama with egoless abandon. (It probably helped that Farmiga got some practice as a child-terrorized parent in 2007's "Joshua.")
Fuhrman possesses the requisite sinister stare and pallid face of an evil child, which plays nicely off Sarsgaard's basic dullard dad.
As you might know, several adoption groups have called for boycotts of "Orphan" because it might stifle adoptions from people who buy into the fears that abused, neglected or abandoned children could be "psychotic."
Trust me, no adoptive child could be as psychotic as Furhman's calculating Esther.
Those adoption groups would have retained more public credibility had they waited to actually see the movie before calling for its boycott.
"Orphan"
Rating: 1½ stars
Starring: Vera Farmiga, Peter Sarsgaard, Isabelle Furhmann, CCH Pounder, Margo Martindale, Jimmy Bennett
Directed by: Jaume Collet-Sera
Other: A Warners Bros. release. Rated R (language, sexual situations, violence). 123 minutes.