Rating of
3/4
The Orphan
thebakerboyhimself - wrote on 08/04/09
“The Orphan” rated R for disturbing violent content, sexuality, and profanity
Starring Vera Farmiga, Peter Sarsgaard, and Isabelle Fuhrman
Directed by Juame Collet—Serra
Copy and paste the following link to hear the audio podcast of this review:
http://www.box.net/shared/static/x8f8hpzmk2.mp3
Every once and a while I’ll get an itch to catch a scary movie, and this is certainly that. This was an edge-of-your-seat thriller with all the regular elements which make up today’s token freaky film. You have blood in the first few minutes, screams, bad dreams, some jumpy moments, and some unexpected jumpy moments along with a bit of a twist at the end. “It’s Children of the Corn”, meets “Halloween”, meets “The Good Son”, meets “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle”.
There is some great camera movements and angles—good drama, good acting, and some very intense moments which keep you guessing all the way through...are they going to make it out alive?
Unfortunately, there is also some very inappropriate material, brief nudity, and sexual content, which I guess you’ll have in today’s world, because apparently, Hollywood has a difficult time believing that a scary flick will sell unless it has skinny chicks with big breastses running around the house, screaming, tripping over the kids’ toys, trying to get away from the killer.
Here’s the plot folks: Picturesque family living in a big, beautiful home, driving fancy cars, and own lots of expensive stuff...have fallen upon a pretty traumatic experience. In an effort to overcome the physical and psychological loss of their unborn baby, Kate Coleman turns to therapy, prescription medication, and after much deliberation...adoption.
They arrive at the catholic orphanage and find themselves strangely drawn to an articulate, Russian, artist named Esther, who tells stories through her paintings...and with whom they identify very closely.
Shortly after they welcome the orphan into their home...a very alarming series of events begin to unfold which lead Kate to believe that something is wrong with Esther.
In this movie, Esther is depicted as a girl who gets picked on… a lot, because she’s different, doesn’t dress like others, doesn’t talk like other kids (and she was killing people, too—G Joe) I think one of the lessons to be learned here, You don’t have to be just like everyone else...God made you the way you are—be that person. It’s not what happens to you, but how you react that really matters. If you have a bad day, get all bent out of shape, pickup a gun and start shooting people and blowing things up...then you’re probably making the wrong decision, but that’s just my humble opinion.
