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The Orphanage (2007)

Director: J.A. Bayona

Time Out rating

Average user rating

19 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

An extraordinary performance by Belén Rueda (‘The Sea Inside’) is the beating heart and tortured soul of ‘The Orphanage’, the most frightening ghost story since ‘The Others’. But where Alejandro Amenábar’s supernatural puzzle-piece was chilly and cerebral, fellow Spanish filmmaker Juan Antonio Bayona’s affecting debut feature is unashamedly melodramatic.

Heeding producer Guillermo del Toro’s maxim that all the best ghost stories possess an element of melancholy, it offers an emotionally overwrought, disturbingly adult view of childhood fears.
Together with her husband Carlos (Fernando Cayo) and adopted seven-year-old son Simón (Roger Príncep), Laura (Rueda) is celebrating the opening of their new home for mentally and physically handicapped children.

But when Simón vanishes into thin air, stories he has told about his ‘imaginary friends’ start to chime with troubling recollections from Laura’s own childhood – as an orphan raised in this very same house. Do these disturbing, deeply buried memories hold clues to Simón’s mysterious disappearance, or are they merely a symptom of Laura’s regressive slide into an infantile state? Drawing upon children’s games and the Wendy/Lost Boys thread of ‘Peter Pan’, scriptwriter Sergio G Sánchez explores the mental disintegration of a woman possessed and overwhelmed by her child’s disappearance.

Much influenced by Roman Polanski, Bayona displays a forensic eye for the creepy, unsettling atmosphere that wreathes itself around the domestic settings and everyday objects. With its elegant, atmospheric long takes and expressionistic use of colour, ‘The Orphanage’ draws us inexorably into its haunted physical and mental spaces. The seance conducted by Geraldine Chaplin’s bird-like psychic, Aurora, is a bravura set piece charged with terror and distressing emotion, the finale subtle but heart-breaking.

Author: Nigel Floyd

Time Out Film Guide

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User reviews of this film

jimbo said...

Posted on Apr 28 2008 17:57 don't generally watch this sort of film but the fulsome reviews tempted me. wasn't worried by it or convinced. by its silliness, it reminds me why i don't trouble myself with this sort of thing.

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sparks said...

Posted on Apr 28 2008 12:07 Really good film! original and creepy, definately worth a watch.

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usman khawaja said...

Posted on Apr 21 2008 15:22 an absolute instant classic in line with the shining -a real revelation

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usman khawaja said...

Posted on Apr 21 2008 15:20 beyond the horror and above the buoyant is the best way to describe this blessed offerring from spain .
bayona is a major new talent and it is written all over this instant classic which is a psychological melodrama above the overwrought sensibilities of some overclever but obnoxious critics who are becoming clownish in their critiques comparing it to others and sixth sense -just because it has a supernatural element with kids involved -that is where the similarity ends ,and child abuse and maternal love take over the empty stage from others
the movie is not inspired but more so derived out of maternal fear ,an overwrought emotion which all men who have any intelligence will comprehend ,and the matron here is real ,she has lines on her beatiful countenance ,which mortal matrons get when anxiety takes a toll ,unlike hollywood actresses like kidman or leigh ,who have regular botox injections which exceed the talent nature infused into their insipid forms ,but the emotion of fear is a primordial and powerful derivative which can make and destroy and here that comes in the form of a child vanishing in an orfanato,which is a metaphor for the world today where millions of kids disappear every year into various forms of slavery or violent death.
the mother here is superb ,but so is geraldine chaplin as a clairvoyant ,they balance each other well and the movie reminds us of the subconcious nuances of SHINING and DARK WATER,it is totally unlike the miserable and predictable OTHERS ,and any similarities are limited to it being termed a horror genre .
in truth this is about the fears of a mother and a parent and any sensitive person can identify with that premise ,and you dont have to have offspring to appreciate the trauma ,which is truly overwrought and affectively presented to the credit of a major talent on cinema horizon -bayona .
love it or hate it but you will not ignore it and it will haunt you and that is the power of true art ,and that is something OTHERS can never achieve in this life or the next .
- jbz7879

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john paul said...

Posted on Apr 20 2008 18:11 the film is garbage subtitles destroy it, if only it was in english also the acting is abit shabby all in all pooooooooo!

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Jessica said...

Posted on Apr 18 2008 03:05 Full of suspense, we spent the last 20 mins actually holding hands, which I've not had to do since Seven! Brilliant though I saw it weeks ago now & it's still with me.

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wolf72 said...

Posted on Apr 12 2008 23:59 This film is extraordinarily brilliant!! You completey forget the subtitles and just get absorbed into the whole atmosphere of the film. A very clever and strangely haunting movie. Don't go expecting a classic horror because it itsn't that kind of film, if you want suspense and that creepy kind of 'play on your mind' psychological stuff then go see it! A true classic and my film of the year for 08 so far!

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alan said...

Posted on Apr 10 2008 13:38 I have to say when they told me at the box office it was sub, I did look for Alt film. After I watched it I would say it really was great and easy to follow. Rather scary too, I'm 20 and I had my hands over my ears for Christ sake. Watch it you'll love it

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kez said...

Posted on Apr 10 2008 09:04 A good evening's entertainment. You don't notice the subtitles after a while. Recommended.

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Sutton said...

Posted on Apr 07 2008 13:32 A superb movie that keeps you gripped through out. Great performances from the leads and well shot. Well worth seeing on the big screen.

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christian martin said...

Posted on Apr 07 2008 12:49 A creepy film, well made, well thought and clever from the biginning to the end, another sample of good spanish cinema.

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Common Sense said...

Posted on Apr 06 2008 16:39 I haven't even seen this film yet, but if its anything like Pans Lab it will be awesome, the director is v well known. I cant believe there are people saying this film is rubbish because it has subtitles!!! Clearly, this film is not a hollywood slasher. Its for sensible people that want to see a good film.

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Paul said...

Posted on Apr 04 2008 13:07 Really great mix of the supernatural with more real psycological human horror. At no point was it predictable, and some bits were downright creepy. A great piece of work. People who slag off subtitles are just lazy, I didn't notice them- in some ways it makes it better, the fact it's not American means it's not cheesy, as American horrors almost inevitably are.

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Mia Nordberg said...

Posted on Apr 04 2008 12:32 I really enjoyed the movie, though I can't believe people complain about subtitles... it's a foreign film for God's sake, you surely weren't expecting English voice-over?

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never again said...

Posted on Apr 03 2008 17:35 never watch this. its alll subtitled, not worth the money.

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