Jaume Collet-Serra’s Orphan features one of the most twisted child performances around, and a wild twist that caused plenty of controversy. But is there more to it than that?
The film plays on the creepy kid horror movie trope to such a significant effect that it becomes the film’s greatest weapon on first watch.
A married couple, Kate and John Coleman (played by Vera Farmiga and Peter Sarsgaard), has endured a torrid time together, and the recent tragedy of a stillbirth could cause greater distance. But they attempt to rectify this by adopting a child. They stumble upon a gifted yet troubled 9-year-old girl named Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman) and decide to take her in.
You know the drill, though, right? Esther isn’t what she seems. But what exactly isn’t right about her? The presentation of the film leads you down a well-trodden path laid down by the likes of The Omen. A ghost? A demonically possessed child? Those are the obvious answers, and Jaume Collet-Serra gleefully plays with those expectations. Even as it becomes clearer what exactly is going on, a part of you is still wondering how.
The truth of it is wild enough in fiction, but the fact it’s somewhat based in reality makes it more fascinating. Spoilers ahead if you haven’t seen Orphan yet.
Orphan’s villain makes its twist work
Esther’s behavior becomes increasingly disturbing and bizarrely adult for a 9-year-old. That’s because she isn’t a 9-year-old but an adult with a rare disease that makes her appear childlike. We learn of her troubled past as Vera Farmiga’s frazzled and gaslit Kate becomes increasingly determined to find out why her new daughter seems to be the spawn of Satan. It turns out Esther likes to cuckoo her way into a family, seduce the patriarch, and pretty much destroy/kill anyone in the way. So we shift violently from The Omen to Fatal Attraction.
The plot somewhat understandably drew ire from adoption services, and the depiction of a physically disabled person being a mentally ill monster was always going to be a point of contention. But on the former point at least, horror is often about irrational fear being realized, and there’s distinctly melodramatic tongue placed firmly in cheek with Orphan.
Still, it would be moot if it was a terrible film with poor performances. What we get is a slightly bloated thriller with one of the great modern villains and a child performance for the ages.
And in both cases, they come from Isabelle Fuhrman‘s Esther. Despite the film’s twist, Furhman was indeed a child when playing Esther. Still, something is fitting about a young girl pulling off a disturbingly adult performance as an adult character who spends much of the time pretending to be a child. Fuhrman tackles this duality with frightening ease.
The film itself isn’t exactly an all-time great, and the belated prequel couldn’t quite bottle the same magic twice with a now-adult Fuhrmann reprising the role (interesting as that concept is). Still, that performance, in particular, will always deserve special credit.
