Could've been better

Rating: 7/10 (26 December 2009)

Orphan reminded me of another title with a similar premise and name: The Orphanage. And just like The Orphanage, Orphan is a psychological thriller/drama.
The good news: amazing acting (especially from the lead girl that plays Esther), great scene direction, good character development and a good and suspenseful story setup.
The bad news: all i said about character development and story goes to hell in the final act, which completely ruins what was built story-wise, until that point. And what ruins it is not the twist - the twist is actually well thought. What ruins everything comes after the twist: somehow, the script writers decided to use every cliché in the history of movies. The father's stupidity and lack of logical thinking is abashing, but "the icing on the cake" is how everything that happens in the 3rd act seems to be so forced, up until the very end.
I made a short list of things to do when you're in mortal danger:

if your adopted kid (that your wife also suspects might be a murderer) is hitting on you, just tell her to go to bed, as it's the most sensible thing to do in the given situation...

if you, as a mother, are convinced that your adopted kid is a murderer and wants to kill your natural kids, under no circumstance act calm and logically, in order to keep her under surveillance until everything is cleared; you must act irrational so that you'll get sedated/separated from everyone, complicating things even further

after you've managed to knock the murderer down, don't immobilize him/her. Just turn your back and walk away, leaving him/her there to regain consciousness (so that he/she might attack you later)

and finally, my favorite: after you KO'ed the murderer and left him there to regain consciousness and you hear the police coming, it is imperative that you go into a forest where the police cannot find you and where it is very easy for the murderer to kill you without any trouble from the police

OK, one more: when you kill a disturbed criminal, you must use a cool line. Otherwise, he probably won't die.

Final thoughts: Orphan is not a bad movie; but it could've been a lot better. A clichéd script (with a very stupid final act) drags it down.