Great job by Isabelle Furhman; morally offensive storyline/message

Rating: 5/10 (25 February 2011)

*Contains Spoilers*
I have very mixed feelings about this movie.
First the good points. Undoubtedly the best thing about this movie is young Fuhrman as Esther, who is more of a second main character rather than just an antagonist. She was absolutely charming, even mesmerizing. Her character easily commanded every scene she's in, from her literary speech (if sometimes convoluted in particular circumstances) to her dashing aristocratic appearance, to the various forms of art at her fingertips. Moreover, Esther was like a Renaissance girl, projecting rare values of intelligence, elegance, and artistic style.
As to other characters, Farmiga as the mother was suitably neurotic and conflicted; Sarsgaard did well conveying the tired father clinging to rationality. The child actors were also good.
The cinematography and music score did the job well, so the movie was solid in these respects (the burst of Tchaikovsky from under Esther's fingertips was particularly refreshing in this day and age). The visual style was brilliant at times – the idea about fluorescent paint that glows in violet light (or whatever) was well-placed. The end credit sequence deserves separate praise. However, I wish the director did not resort so often to worn-out "thriller" clichés (mirror closed to reveal person standing behind, sudden bouts of nerve-grating sound etc.) which date back to Hitchcock, were cheap and trite 20 years ago and are just pointless today. I think the film would rather have benefited from a more subdued approach – it would have more effectively emphasized the realistic violence, instead of putting the viewer into a cheap slasher flick mood.
And now, the bad points.
First off, the movie is politically and socially offensive. Abuse against adopted children, including those from Eastern Europe and Russia, is a serious problem. To make a movie depicting the adopted child as a horrible villain who inflicts injuries on herself just to incriminate the well-meaning, recovering alcoholic mother, attempts to sexually seduce the father and kill the other children, can be seen as an attempt to implant a suggestion that real-world domestic abuse aimed at adopted children is somehow "their own fault". Needless to say, this came off as terribly wrong, at least for this viewer. It's kind of like making a movie about a dark-skinned person who is a completely irredeemable criminal, but evades justice by exploiting his minority status. Except "Orphan" is even worse, because adopted children are probably the most vulnerable and defenseless members of our society. This wouldn't have been so prominent if the movie had been taking itself less seriously – e.g. a plain horror or slasher flick. But this film tries hard to be "realistic" – thus making its unrealistic plot line much more offensive.
What makes it even worse, is that the DVD/Blu-ray come bundled with a public service announcement which encourages domestic adoption over foreign. This means that the vilification of foreign children (in particular from Russia and Estonia) was done ON PURPOSE and not as an oversight. It seems like the authors WANTED to portray foreign children as evil so that overseas adoption is discouraged. This sort of political agenda is just plain disgusting.
I also didn't enjoy how the authors turned Esthel into a "sex doll" at one point. It was so pedophilic, and incestuous to boot. I don't know how the young actress felt (she was 12 at the time), but I certainly frown upon these instances of pedophilia and incest that sometimes make their way into modern movies. It just seems like blatant exploitation. Even movies like "American Dream" or "Lolita" (both versions) didn't stoop so low. And again it conveyed the meaning that if adopted children get sexually abused, it's their own damn fault. Not a highly moral message by any standards.
Furthermore, the authors failed to develop their own premise. After ambitiously laying the groundwork (and offending the hell out of us in the process), when push comes to shove they bail out in a way that is both repulsive and disappointing. Suitable for a thriller, but not for a character drama the movie was shaping up to be. After milking it for all the exploitation they could manage, the authors abandoned the theme of child crime, instead taking the safe, if superficially "scarier", route. So, Esthel's not really a child, but a freak of nature, and promptly transforms from a beautiful young girl into a disgusting woman with bad teeth. Obviously just so that she can be killed without any moral controversy.
1. Planted idea that adopted foreign children lie about being abused and in fact abuse themselves; 2. Planted idea that adopted foreign children are dangerous to their adopted families and everyone else; 3. Planted idea that recovering alcoholic mother publicly abusing her adopted child may actually have "good reasons"; 4. Exploited sexual perversions by putting a 12-year-old child actress into a "sex doll" and making her attempt sexual seduction of her adopted father; therefore also planting an idea that sexually abused adopted children have themselves to blame; 5. After the above was achieved, stopped and did NOT explore what could really happen if a child actually did turn violent, taking instead the cheap and easy "monster-of-the-week" way out.
All-in-all, a majorly uneven movie. Great job by Fuhrman, solid acting by everyone else, adequate (and a few times excellent) cinematography and music are all undermined by a morally offensive plot, a finale that feels like a cop-out, and an extremely underhanded "message".