Orphan

Orphan (2009)

Summary

Orphan is a psychological horror-thriller film centered on a couple, Kate and John Coleman, whose marriage is strained after the stillbirth of their third child. To heal their family, they decide to adopt a nine-year-old girl named Esther from a local orphanage. Initially charming and well-mannered, Esther soon exhibits increasingly disturbing and violent behavior. Kate becomes suspicious of the child's true nature and dark past, but her husband's disbelief, coupled with her own history of alcoholism, isolates her. The film culminates in a shocking revelation about Esther's true identity and age.

Plot

The Coleman family, grieving the loss of their unborn daughter, adopts the seemingly sweet Russian girl Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman). Their son, Daniel, is immediately wary of her, but their young, deaf daughter, Max, quickly bonds with her.

Kate, the adoptive mother, soon begins to notice unsettling signs: Esther is uncharacteristically knowledgeable about sex, reacts violently to a bully, and expresses a strange obsession with Kate's attention. When the kind head nun of the orphanage, Sister Abigail, visits and attempts to contact the Colemans with warnings about Esther's past, Esther murders her. Esther then manipulates Max into helping her hide the body, threatening her younger sister to keep silent.

As Esther's escalating actions—including breaking her own arm and framing Kate for it—cause John to doubt his wife's sanity, Kate begins her own investigation. She discovers that Esther's previous family died in a mysterious house fire, and her search leads her to a psychiatric institution in Estonia.

The film's climactic twist reveals that Esther is not a child; she is Leena Klammer, a 33-year-old woman suffering from hypopituitarism, a rare hormonal disorder that stunted her physical growth and gives her the appearance of a nine-year-old girl. She is a violent psychopath who escaped from a mental institution.

After learning the truth via a phone call, John rushes to confront Leena/Esther, who brutally murders him. Leena, in an adult persona, then attempts to kill Kate and Max. A final, violent confrontation takes place on a frozen pond, where Kate kills Leena by kicking her into the ice, cracking it, and then breaking her neck as she clings to Kate's leg. Kate and Max survive the ordeal.

Cast

• Vera Farmiga as Kate Coleman

• Peter Sarsgaard as John Coleman

• Isabelle Fuhrman as Esther / Leena Klammer

• Aryana Engineer as Max Coleman

• Jimmy Bennett as Daniel Coleman

• CCH Pounder as Sister Abigail

Crew

• Director: Jaume Collet-Serra

• Screenplay by: David Leslie Johnson

• Story by: Alex Mace

• Producers: Joel Silver, Susan Downey, Jennifer Davisson Killoran, Leonardo DiCaprio

Release Date

July 24, 2009 (United States)