Well, they were right when they said there's something wrong with Esther

Cast: Vera Farmiga, Peter Sarsgaard, Isabelle Fuhrman, Jimmy Bennett, Aryana Engineer
Director: Jaume Collet-Serra
Screenwriters: David Leslie Johnson, Alex Mace

Cracks within what appears on the surface to be a normal, middle class suburban white family are hard to cover, especially when you’re the Colemans. Having recently given birth to a stillborn baby, a distraught Kate (Farmiga), who is also a recovered alcoholic, and her previously unfaithful husband John (Saarsgaard) are desperately hoping that saving a child from an orphanage will seal the knots in the woodwork of their troubled marriage.

At the orphanage John finds Esther (Fuhrman) painting and singing by herself in an upstairs room. A sweet, implicit child with skin as white and beautiful as snow, a radiant smile and a painting style that could blow any other nine year old out of the water, the couple feel like they’ve stuck gold. They take her home to meet their other two kids, Dan (Jimmy Bennett) and Max (a female – Aryana Engineer) and Esther instantly gels with Max, who is deaf. Esther’s ability to pick up sign language having never been taught it before is astounding, but goes unquestioned.

However, as the film’s tagline suggests, “there’s something wrong with Esther”. And soon enough that begins to show – Esther pushes a child off a slide and takes the brake off her adoptive mother’s car, almost killing her new sister in the process. These acts of violence seem rather unexplainable – why could she be doing it? Is it just for attention? But viewers soon discover that there is something far, far more sinister going on. Though Kate realises early on that her new daughter is not as innocent as she looks, she has a hard time convincing anyone else, only making herself look more obsessive and dangerous in the process, so much so that her husband goes so far as to threaten her with divorce and her psychiatrist advises she visit a mental institute.

Orphan – Official Trailer

Orphan plays on so many relatable family themes (divorce, addiction, infidelity, child favouritism, loss of a child, having a child with an impairment (Max is deaf in the film, though the actress that plays her is not)) that the makers have made it impossible to not get sucked in in some way. It’s suitably terrifying, largely down to a repetative sinister music overlay and the uncertainty of why this is happening and what could happen next. It’s only at the end that a huge twist is revealed.

Standout performances are Isabelle Fuhrman as a very creepy Esther and Aryana Engineer as the young Max; the rest of the cast are so dimwitted and dull that it’s frustrating they’re even in the film at all. The parents particularly - not checking Esther’s back story at the orphanage (and more to the point, the orphanage not knowing it), not demanding the orphanage take her back after the first time she behaves dangerously, constantly talking about her weirdness when she can easily overhear their thoughts, fears and plans, the father’s incomprehensible stupidity in taking so long to realise his new kid is a murderer. Then again without the brainless parents, the story wouldn’t get to be nearly as gruesome as it is. So, if that’s likely to bother you, then perhaps wait for it to come to SKY. But if you think you’d enjoy having the shits scared out of you by someone half your size and mentality, and don’t really care much for realism, Orphan comes highly reccomended.

Orphan is in cinemas nationwide from 7th August via Optimum Releasing

By Cathy Reay