Esther wants to be different but they play it safe instead

Rating: 7/10 (29 July 2009)

Like "Joshua" in estrogen, "Orphan" not only shares its similarity with George Ratliff's thriller via featuring a precociously villainous juvenile, but also because it stars Vera Farmiga as a mother at the receiving end of her child's diabolical manipulations. Jaume Collet-Serra crafts a mildly diverting hybrid of "The Omen" and "Swimfan" though the proneness of David Leslie Johnson's script to adhere to cheap horror conventions undercuts whatever interesting psychological thriller about a gradually imploding family that stirs underneath.
Played with vicious adequacy by Isabelle Fuhrman, Esther is blissfully welcomed into the Coleman household in a snowy middle-of-nowhere house. Kate (Farmiga), a former alcoholic still reeling from the death of their unborn third child, and John (Peter Sarsgaard), a husband with loyalty issues regarding his wife, nevertheless wholeheartedly accepts Esther as part of their family. Their adopted daughter is gleefully cordial, paints cheery images, eager to learn the piano, and -- for a nine-year old Russian who has just spent a year in the US -- speaks very good English. The mantra "too good to be true," however is slowly evidenced, as the titular daughter starts to react violently to school bullies and casually drops the F-bomb as if it were a customary lexicon for people her age.
Embodied by John's imperious refusal to see something is wrong with the things around him to the point of being laughable, "Orphan" ultimately plays on overly familiar genre tunes that rely too much on foreseeable shock moments and questionable logic of its characters to deliver most of its scares. Collet-Serra, despite the obvious lack of faith that the material would provide the spooks without resorting so much to shock tactics, at least capably maintains an ominous aura that accompanies his villain's innocence largely through Fuhrman's calm, faux-Manichaean scowls and Oedipus cajolery, and Farmiga's gameness to provide her character with more depth than what it's actually called for. Yet despite being ultimately entertaining and having a potential to be more intelligent, it frustratingly pursues a well-trodden path with such earnestness. "There's nothing wrong with being different," remarks Esther early on. Strange, though, that "Orphan" doesn't share the same belief.