Orphan

rating: ****

As orphan opens to Kate Coleman (Farmiga) having a bloody miscarriage,you think it’s one of those films which won’t stop at anything to raise the creeps. Your fears are only reinforced when Kate wakes up from what turns out to be a nightmare to a house that’s perfect in every respect,down to a caring artistic husband and two children,one of whom is hearing impaired. All of whom are trying to come to grips with the baby that was actually lost.

Putting a family as vulnerable such as this in horror’s path is half the work done. All Jaume Collet-Serra could have done after this was use the standard tricks —reflection in the mirror,shadows flitting in the dark,walking into closed rooms—and considered it a job well accomplished.

But this is where Serra’s effort is commendable,he goes the opposite way. The Colemans are one of the most normal families to be portrayed on screen—going to work,having meals like any other family without any artificial warmth dolloped to ruin the effect. The entry of nine-year-old Esther (Fuhrman),whom they adopt to fill in the void left by the lost baby,queers that balance. But in the manner of normal families,where parents and children may be physically in the same house but not always required in each other’s presence,it takes some time before Esther’s effect on the family starts showing.

It’s Kate who first realises that there’s something odd about Esther,and it’s mainly small things—her insistence on wearing clothes more grown-up than her age,keeping the toilet locked as she uses it,keeping her neck and wrists covered at all times,and a small violent streak—that lead her to grow increasingly suspicious.

Esther for her part exploits Kate’s vulnerability. She uses the fact that Kate is emotionally distraught from the miscarriage and battling alcoholism to make others believe that Kate’s doubts about her are products of her unsettled mind.

Similarly Esther uses the threat of harming them or their parents to force the Colemans’ other two children into silence.

However,towards the end Serra somewhat squanders his carefully built story of a family at the mercy of a menace they don’t understand. Where Orphan works for the most part on account of the things that are only hinted at — and on the strength of Farmiga and Fuhrman’s forceful performances — it spends too much time underlining the same over and over towards the end.

The sight of a child as the perpetrator of what builds up gradually to horrific,bloody violence is also disquieting,as is the imagination that puts eight and four-year-olds in its way. It’s also difficult to fathom why children living in such constant fear would not at least try confiding in their parents.

shalini.langer@expressindia.com