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Orphan (2009)
Director: Jaume Collet-Serra
Movie review
From Time Out Chicago
Distraught after a pregnancy that ended in stillbirth, the other John and Kate (Sarsgaard and Farmiga) share their love by adopting a precocious Russian orphan (Fuhrman) who tells them from the outset that she’s…different. Their isolated, modernist home comes with everything a girl could want: an icy pond, a way-high treehouse, a badly stored gun, a hammer, a vise and an adorable, near-deaf sister. (No dog?) There’s no such thing as an intelligent bad-seed movie, but within the admittedly derivative and ludicrous parameters it sets for itself, Orphan overcomes a slow start and frequent belly laughs to become something close to suspenseful.Author: Ben Kenigsberg
Time Out Chicago
User reviews of this film
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- Georgie said...
- Posted on May 19 2010 01:18 Orphaned from an East European institution Esther needs love and care to reintegrate herself into a caring family structure. She imagines the best when adopted by a teetering alcolholic stepmother and a loving but distant stepfather. Of the two existing siblings Max uses her lip reading skills to spy on her mother and secretly converses in an arcane language with Esther revealing dark secrets from the family's past. Esther's stepbrother, Danny, hoards porn in his tree house and shoots innocent birds. Esther is an accomplished pianist - this drives the stepmother mad with jealousy - as her drunkedness has ruined her own music teaching career. Esther's love is rejected by her stepfather and in a cataclysmic finale Esther is abandoned yet again by a stepmother as she pleads for a better chance at life.
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Cast & crew
Director: Jaume Collet-Serra
Cast: Vera Farmiga, Peter Sarsgaard, Isabelle Fuhrman, CCH Pounder, Jimmy Bennett, Margo Martindale, Rosemary Dunsmore full cast
Genre(s): Horror
Rated: R
Duration: 122 mins
US Release: Jul 31 2009
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