Orphan (2009)

Orphan was a 2009 horror film that was directed by Jaume Collet-Serra and starring Vera Farmiga, Peter Sarsgaard and Isabelle Fuhrman. The film centered on a couple who adopted a child after their unborn child's death. Orphan was produced by Joel Silver and Susan Downey of Dark Castle Entertainment and Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Davisson Killoran of Appian Way Productions. The film was released theatrically in the United States on July 24, 2009.

Plot
Kate and John Coleman's marriage is strained after the stillbirth of their third child, Jessica, whose loss is particularly hard on Kate. She and John decide to adopt a 9-year-old Russian girl, Esther, from St. Mariana's Home for Girls, a local orphanage. While their 5-year-old deaf daughter, Max, embraces Esther, their 12-year-old son, Daniel, is cold towards her.

One night, John and Kate begin to make out, and Esther interrupts them. Kate becomes suspicious when Esther expresses far more knowledge of sex than expected of a child her age. Esther then exhibits hostile behavior in front of Max and Daniel, such as killing an injured pigeon and badly injuring a bullying classmate. Sister Abigail, the head of the orphanage, visits the household, warning Kate and John that tragic events and accidents always seem to happen around Esther. To keep Sister Abigail from returning, Esther causes her to crash her car on the road and then kills her with a hammer. She forces Max to help her move the body and then hides the evidence in Daniel's treehouse. Daniel sees them at the treehouse, and she threatens to kill him if he tells Kate and John.

As Kate becomes further convinced about Esther's unusual behavior, John believes she is being paranoid and tells Esther to do something nice for Kate. Esther rips out the flowers from Jessica's grave and gives them to Kate as a bouquet. Kate is horrified and roughly grabs Esther's arm in distress and frustration, asserting that she did this on purpose. That night, Esther breaks her own arm and falsely blames Kate, causing further strife in Kate and John's marriage. The next day, Esther releases the brake in the car, causing it to roll into oncoming traffic with Max inside. She also points out the wine she found in the kitchen, causing John and Kate's therapist to think that Kate is over the limit again, though she's not. They suggest she return to rehab, and John threatens to leave her and take Daniel, Esther, and Max if she refuses. Kate discovers that Esther came from an Estonian mental hospital, and the orphanage she claims she was from has no record of her.

When Daniel learns about Sister Abigail's death from Max and searches the treehouse, Esther sets it on fire and attempts to kill him but is thwarted by Max. Daniel is seriously injured, and while in the hospital, Esther tries to smother him to death with a pillow, but doctors arrive in time to revive him. Kate, whose suspicions are confirmed and angry at Esther's attempt to kill Daniel, slaps her and screams at her to stay away from Daniel and Max, but she is restrained and sedated. That night, Esther dresses provocatively and attempts to seduce John, who threatens to send Esther back to the orphanage after realizing Kate had been right about Esther's behavior.

At the hospital, Kate is contacted by Dr. Värava of the Saarne Instituute and learns that Esther is actually a 33-year-old woman named Leena Klammer, born in Estonia. She has hypopituitarism, a rare hormonal disorder that stunted her physical growth and caused proportional dwarfism, and she has spent most of her life posing as a little girl. Leena is violent and has murdered at least seven people, including the last family that adopted her, after failing to seduce her adoptive father. The ribbons she wears around her wrists and neck have been hiding scars from trying to break out of straitjackets during her time at the institute. Meanwhile, Leena removes her disguise and stabs John to death. Kate rushes home, and Leena attempts to shoot her, wounding her arm. After Leena opens fire on Max, Kate breaks through the roof above and lands on top of her, knocking her out.

Kate and Max flee as police arrive, but Leena attacks Kate near the frozen pond, hurling them onto the ice. Max tries to shoot Leena but shatters the ice instead, sending Leena and Kate underwater. Kate climbs out, with Leena clinging to her legs. Leena once more tries to manipulate Kate, pleading for her life while holding her knife to her back, but to Leena's shock, Kate doesn't fall for her manipulation and angrily kicks Leena in the face, breaking her neck and killing her. Leena's body sinks into the pond as Kate and Max are met by police.

Cast

 * Vera Farmiga as Katherine "Kate" Coleman.
 * Peter Sarsgaard as John Coleman.
 * Isabelle Fuhrman as Esther Coleman/Leena Klammer.
 * C. C. H. Pounder as Sister Abigail.
 * Jimmy Bennett as Daniel Coleman.
 * Aryana Engineer as Maxine "Max" Coleman.
 * Margo Martindale as Dr. Browning.
 * Karel Roden as Dr. Värava.
 * Rosemary Dunsmore as Grandma Barbara.
 * Genelle Williams as Sister Judith.

Production
The film was mostly shot in Canada in the cities of Toronto, Port Hope and Montreal. Also, some portions of the film are shot in the American state of Connecticut. A hint of this was the vehicle's license plate throughout the movie.

""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.""

- Esther Coleman

Reception
The critical reaction to Orphan was mixed with the film earning a rating of 56% (43% among the Top Critics) on Rotten Tomatoes where the consensus was: "While it had moments of dark humor and the requisite scares, Orphan failed to build on it's interesting premise and degenerated into a formulaic, sleazy horror/thriller". It also earned a 42 out of 100 on Metacritic. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave Orphan 3½ stars out of 4, writing: "You wanted a good horror film about a child who was from Hell. You got one." Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle also gave a positive review, saying: "Orphan provided everything that you might expect in a psycho-child thriller, but with such excess and exuberance that it still had the power to surprise."

Todd McCarthy of Variety was less impressed by writing: "Teasingly enjoyable rubbish through the first hour, Orphan became genuine trash during it's protracted second half." Manohla Dargis of The New York Times wrote, "The 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." Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a D+ score, saying, "Orphan was not scary. It was garish and plodding."

Openly (And at times vehemently) negative reviews are abundant: From "Galling and distasteful trash" (Eric D. Snider) to "Old-fashioned and trashy horror flick" (Emanuel Levy) and "Relentlessly bad" and "Entertaining" (Rob Vaux). According to Dennis Schwartz of Ozus' World Movie Reviews, "The problem with Orphan was not merely that the film was idiotic. It was that it was also sleazy, formulaic and repellant." 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."

Although the film received mixed reviews, Isabelle Fuhrman's performance was acclaimed and positively received. Emanuel Levy said about Fuhrman "Acquitted herself with a strong performance, affecting a rather convincing Russian accent and executing sheer evil with an admirable degree of calm and earnestness." Todd McCarthy proclaimed that Fuhrman (As well as Bennett and Engineer) was terrific and she "Made Esther calmly beyond reproach even when faced with monumental evidence against her and had the requisite great evil eye." Mick LaSalle continued in that Fuhrman "Stole the show" and she "Injected nuance into this portrayal as well as an arch spirit." As it was said by Roger Ebert, she "Was not going to be convincing as a nice child for a long time."

The film was the #4 film at the box office for it's opening weekend, making $12.77 million total behind G-Force, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and The Ugly Truth respectively. As of September 9, 2009, the film grossed a total of $47,886,036.