Orphan Movie Review

Went to see this on Sunday night with Kevin and all I can say is...Shit! I mean that as in it scared me in some parts..some parts were sick, others funny. for those of you who haven't seen it, I'd only recommend it if you are not at all squeamish and don't mind the sight of blood etc...

Kate (Vera Farmiga) and John Coleman (Peter Sarsgaard) are experiencing strains in their marriage after Kate's third child was stillborn. The loss is particularly hard on Kate, who is still recovering from a drinking habit that cost her job. When the couple decides to adopt another child, they adopt Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman), a nine-year-old Russian girl, from the local orphanage. While Kate and John's deaf daughter Max (Aryana Engineer) embraces Esther almost immediately, their son Daniel (Jimmy Bennett) is somewhat less welcoming.

Not long after Esther arrives, she pushes a girl who teased her in class off a slide, breaking her leg. Kate and John initially seem to believe Esther's claim that it was an accident. Max saw Esther shove the girl, and later covers for Esther by saying that the girl "slipped." However, Kate grows suspicious when Esther, who watched Kate and John have sex, expresses knowledge of sex and its slang far more sophisticated than would be expected for a child her age, and is further disturbed when Sister Abigail, the head of the orphanage, warns her and John about Esther's tendency to be around when things go wrong. Esther overhears this, and later kills Sister Abigail with a hammer to the head, later convincing Max to help her hide the body and the hammer. After they hide it in their treehouse, Daniel witnesses them descending the treehouse, and later that night, Esther holds a box cutter to Daniel's neck and threatens to cut off his penis if he tells anyone what he saw.

An increasingly suspicious Kate is told by the orphanage that they can't find any record of the Russian orphanage Esther came from, but However, John doesn't believe her, despite continued ominous behavior by Esther, which includes sneaking into John's workshop, breaking her own arm in a vise, and convincing John that Kate broke it a scuffle. On Esther's first day back at school, she slips Kate's SUV into reverse while she and Daniel are getting out, nearly killing Max. Badly shaken, Kate buys two bottles of wine, but at the last minute pours one of them down the drain.

Kate subsequently learns, through a search of Esther's room, that she was housed at the Saarne Institute, a mental hospital in Estonia. She calls the Institute and discovers that it isn't an orphanage, but a mental institution. Continuing her investigation of Esther's time at the Institute, she is convinced Esther is a "bad seed" and wants her out of the house, but John and her counselor think that Kate is relapsing into her drinking habit, and after John produces the other bottle Kate bought the night before, he threatens to leave her unless she gets help.

A few days later, Daniel talks to Max about Esther's behavior. Max reveals that she's drawn several pictures of Esther's misdeeds, and that they hid the hammer Esther used to kill Sister Abigail in his treehouse. Daniel decides to get the hammer and go to the police. However, Esther follows him up and sets the treehouse on fire, intending to get rid of the evidence and kill Daniel. Daniel escapes escapes by falling out of the tree, and is severely injured. Esther tries to finish him off by smashing a brick over his head, but Max shoves her out of the way just in time. At the hospital, Esther tries to kills him, and after Kate knocks Esther to the ground, she is sedated by doctors.

At home, Esther cuts one of Kate's dresses to make a provocative outfit and puts on a large amount of makeup in an attempt to seduce John. When John threatens to call the orphanage about her, Esther stabs him to death. Max witnesses this and hides in her closet.

As Kate is coming out of sedation, she gets a call from the Saarne Institute's director, Dr. Värava, who reveals that Esther isn't a girl, but a 33-year-old woman named Leena. She has hypoplasia, a disorder that stunted her physical growth, and has spent most of her life posing as a little girl. The doctor tells Kate that Esther is dangerously psychotic, and has killed dozens of people. Horrified, Kate rushes home to find Esther stalking Max with John's pistol. Kate tries to stop her, but Esther shoots her in the arm and tries to chase Max.

Their chase takes them outside, where Kate ends up struggling with Esther at a frozen pond. Max acquires the gun, and shoots a hole in the ice, causing Kate and Esther to fall in. After fighting off Esther's attempts to drown her, Kate crawls out of the hole, followed by Esther. Reverting to her little girl persona, Esther begs for her life, addressing Kate as her mother. Kate responds that she is not Esther's mother, and breaks Esther's neck, sending her back into the pond to drown.