Farmiga, Fuhrman and Sarsgaard in Orphan. (Warner Bros)

Orphan

Bad movies don’t bother me too much – I can even enjoy a good stinker, many of which have been responsible for making me laugh longer and louder than lots of deliberate comedies over the years. But there’s “bad” as in “poorly made,” and then there’s “bad” as in rotten – the “bad” you experience when drinking milk that’s been left in the fridge too long. Orphan, an Evil Kid movie from director Jaume Collet-Sera, is that second kind of bad ... which is ironic to the point of being painful when you consider that in terms of craft, the movie is pretty good.

Evil Kid movies can be a hoot, largely due to the incongruity of the picture of innocence (aw – look at the cute child ...) corrupted to the point of ludicrousness (... and she’s got a knife!). The Omen, The Bad Seed, even that awkward Macaulay Culkin vehicle The Good Son are all reasonable examples of Evil Kid movies that give us the creeps in a time-honored fashion. They earn their scares, and invite us to have a good time as we gulp down our popcorn. But putting kids in jeopardy is another story altogether: There’s a fine line between thriller and sadism, and Orphan crosses that line with sociopathic glee.

John and Kate Coleman (Peter Sarsgaard, Vera Farmiga) are your typical Hollywood version of a troubled couple: They park their fancy cars in the cool garage of their opulent home, whose closets are stocked with designer skeletons. Once upon a time he cheated on her; later on, she gave up booze cold turkey after an accident involving their deaf daughter Max and the icy pond on their property. Most recently, Kate endured a stillbirth: The child that was to be Kid #3 didn’t make it. (The movie opens with a particularly gory dream sequence parodying Kate’s experience in the delivery room.)

These are all serious issues, of course, but the film treats them as items to be checked off on a to-do list – along with the equally perfunctory trip to the school for orphaned girls where John and Kate meet Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman), a weirdly composed 9-year-old who paints with precision, dresses with prim formality, and talks like a grownup. I’d like to think that such a child would set off warning buzzers in the minds of any prospective adoptive parent, but maybe that’s just the movie talking: It’s not as if Esther is given so much as a chance to behave like a normal, approachable child. Nevertheless, John and Kate bond immediately, and return to the orphanage three weeks later to pick up their new daughter.

Needless to say, things go wrong. Esther is ridiculed at school for her weird mannerisms and odd clothes. Accidents begin happening around her – and by “accidents” I mean she breaks a taunting peer’s ankle, bludgeons a nun to death with a claw hammer, and snaps the radius bone in her own arm – with a vise! Like a pro! – just to set up mommy for hurting her during a moment of weakness. Yeah, Esther is a keeper. And if you don’t believe me, ask John and Kate’s biological kids ... who are witnesses to most of the girl’s actions, and then the recipients of death threats if they tell their folks or anyone else.

Orphan has some good performances – Farmiga and Sarsgaard are too talented to ever phone in their work, and darn if Fuhrman doesn’t really commit to her nightmarish role – but it sabotages itself with a story construction so toxic it ought to carry a skull and crossbones on the poster. There’s a special ring of hell reserved for filmmakers who greenlight plots that involve the systematic victimization of children for no purpose other than to score cheap thrills from an audience. Here, Esther plays her parents with the same expert deftness as she applies to Kate’s baby grand piano, which is standard stuff; but she reserves an extra dose of sadism for the treatment of her siblings, who are credibly portrayed as absolutely out of their league – and utterly lost and terrified, completely confident that there’s no point in going to mommy and daddy. Yes, there’s a last-minute twist that redefines all of these relationships, but I’m not sure that reversal has the effect intended by the filmmakers. That is to say, it made me laugh. Is that what they were going for?

Orphan is a terrible movie, well told. That last part is the tragedy, as it suggests waste: a lost opportunity to put some solid acting to good use, a squandered introduction of child star Fuhrman, and two hours and three minutes that I’ll never get back. 2

Erich Van Dussen is Managing Editor of Rochester Film Journal. Contact him at info@rochesterfilm.com.