"That's the story of..that's the glory of love" or Orphan (2009)

WARNING: THIS IS SPOILER HEAVY! EXTREMELY SO!

If you don't wish to know what, exactly, is wrong with Esther, I suggest you don't read this entry.
Orphan might as well have been called "The Bad Seed Of The Good Son," seeing as how it owes a lot to both those films. However, it does have a kick-ass twist ending that even I didn't see coming, and I can usually spot a twist coming from five states away.

Orphan starts out with a dream sequence in which we figure out that Esther's future adoptive mother, Kate, has had a miscarriage. Hence the reason she and her husband John (John and Kate? Really? LMAO) are planning to adopt. Kate is then shown in a therapy session talking about her drinking problem and pretty much outright admitting that she isn't ready to adopt a kid. After which, she picks up her deaf daughter, Max, from school and then almost kills them both by running a red light. And after THAT, she yells at Max for playing ball too loudly while Mommy is trying to play the piano. Because yelling at a deaf child makes complete and utter sense. Kate is a bitch clearly the most mentally stable person on earth and this adoption thing should absolutely go well for everyone involved.

Skipping ahead several boring scenes (nothing much happens besides Kate angsting some more to John about how she totally isn't ready to adopt, and the introduction of their other kid, Daniel, who is a little shit with an attitude problem), John and Kate arrive at St. Mariana's Home For Girls to pick out their new puppy daughter. Seriously though, the proprietor of this fine establishment just waves her hand and tells them to look around at all the girls and pick one. Somehow I don't think that's how it works. But whatever.

While Kate looks around and smiles at all the happy, playful children running around who are NOT evil, John wanders upstairs and seriously do orphanages REALLY just let people wander around wherever they damn well please? Aren't they concerned with possible kidnappings and such? Anyway, he hears singing and follows the sound to a room where none other than our pint sized psycho Esther sits painting a picture.

She is singing The Glory of Love, which is meant, I guess, to be creepy(?), but which only reminds me of this classic scene from Beaches:


John sits with Esther for a bit while she tells a long and convoluted story about the picture she's painting, and then he introduces her to Kate, whom Esther seems less than thrilled to meet. Nevertheless, she wins them both over with her super creepy high level of intellect for a 9 year old, and they decide they'll take her.

John and Kate have a pow-wow with the headmistress of the orphanage, who neatly delivers us all the background info we need on Esther: her last foster family in Russia died in a house fire that only she survived, she can speak perfect English even though she's only been in America for two years, she insists on always wearing black ribbons around her neck and wrists, and she will fuck your shit up if you ask her to remove them. That last thing right there would be a HUGE red flag if it were me, but J&K are just like "Cool, when can we have her?"

Several days later, they take Esther home to begin her reign of terror. She meets the other kids and Daniel acts like a tool by playing Guitar Hero at top volume while Esther is opening her homecoming presents. She gets her silent revenge by ferociously hugging John (who has been ignoring Daniel's cries of "Dad! Lookit my score!") and giving Daniel a shit eating grin while she does it. I'm going to give Esther applause for that one. *Clap clap*

That night is when Esther performs her first official act as Creepy Queen by barging into the bedroom while the parents are gettin' busy. She claims to be scared of the lightning and demands to be allowed to sleep next to John. Creepy. Anybody else hearing a warning bell in the distance? Show of hands.

The next morning is Esther's first day at school, and problems arise when she descends the stairs dressed like....this:

Kate tactfully tries to persuade Esther that she might not want to show up for her first day of school dressed like Vicki from Small Wonder, and suggests some jeans instead, to which Esther is like "Fuck that" and insists that she LIKES being different, dammit. Kate was right though, because upon Esther's arrival in her new classroom a particularly snotty little bitch in the front row makes a crack about Little Bo Peep wanting her dress back. Esther gives her bitch face, and we can safely assume that this chick is now on her Death List.

And now, for our first homage to The Good Son. Daniel accidentally shoots a bird with his paintball gun and it's still alive. Esther hands him a rock and is like "Put it out of it's misery." Daniel doesn't want to, so Esther takes matters into her own hands.

I think we're supposed to believe she's all evil and shit for doing this, except for the fact that she was TOTALLY AND COMPLETELY RIGHT to do it. Seriously, if she wanted to be evil about it she could have just let the bird lay there and die slowly while she ate popcorn and watched. The only thing we should notice is that she is strangely nonchalant about it. Almost as though she's killed before. Hmmmmm.

That night, Esther locks the door to the bathroom so nobody can come in while she takes a shower. Kate isn't having this and is all "We never lock doors in this house." I have to say, I'm kind of on Esther's side here. She's in a new house with a family she isn't used to. If it makes her more comfortable to shower with a locked door, then whatever. She isn't three years old or anything, so the chances of her slipping and falling are pretty slim. Anyway, Esther gets her way about the lock so long as she sings so Kate will know she's all right. So, as Esther is performing her Glory of Love number in the shower, Kate takes the opportunity to snoop through her stuff and finds an old Bible with a picture of some dude in it. Interesting.

Speaking of Esther's Bible, in school the next day the same chick who made the Bo Peep crack knocks the Bible right out of Esther's hands and pages go scattering everywhere. Then she makes a grab for Esther's neck ribbon and Esther freaks the hell out and starts screaming bloody murder. If that snotty girl wasn't marked before, she's fucked now.

Life goes on peacefully for a time. Kate attempts to bond with Esther by giving her piano lessons and making her a scrapbook of her new family. Then she shows her the memorial plant in the greenhouse, the soil of which contains the dead baby's ashes. Somehow I get the feeling that Esther is going to do something to the plant. Call it watching many evil child movies over the years, all of them the same a hunch.

That night, as John and Kate are having sex in the kitchen (always a great idea when you have three children in the house who could walk in at any moment) they suddenly notice that Esther is watching them and giving them bitch face.

The next day, feeling rightfully awkward, Kate attempts to explain to Esther what she saw by way of a birds-and-bees talk. Esther puts the brakes on this conversation by informing Kate that she knows very well what grownups do when they're in love: "They fuck." Kate is obviously taken aback by hearing it so knowingly put that way by a 9 year old and decides Esther needs to go to therapy before she starts teaching the other children to swear. Fair enough.

But before that can happen, Esther's got some business to take care of. On a visit to the park, she decides it's time to take care of that bitchy girl who made fun of her clothes, knocked away her Bible, and tried to touch her goddamn ribbon. She accomplishes this by following the girl to the jungle gym and pushing her off the highest point. She hasn't killed her, just broken her leg. I think she got her point across.

That night at dinner, Kate and John are like "Um...Esther, why did you push that chick off the jungle gym?" and Esther denies doing any such thing. And the whole issue is just pushed aside because K&J are SUCH great parents. During this same meal, that little shit Daniel edges himself ever closer to incurring Esther's wrath by criticizing both her Russian accent and the way she eats (which, incidentally, is the proper way; cutting the meat with her knife and fork and such). He suggests she should go "back to Transylvania" and Esther is like "I'm from Russia, you dillweed. Transylvania is a part of Romania." Not in those exact words, of course. Even so, snaps for Esther. That was a particularly fine display of ownage. This pisses Daniel off and he insults Esther some more, prompting his parents to finally step in and do some goddamn parenting by telling him to "apologize to your sister." Daniel retorts "She's NOT my fucking sister!" and gets his treehouse locked until he's ready to apologize. Good. He deserves it.

Kate takes Esther and Max to the grocery store, where she receives a call from the orphanage lady on her top-of-the-line iPhone, which she makes sure to position so that shiny Apple logo is facing the camera at all times. Product placement at its finest.

Anyway, the orphanage lady is calling to remind Kate that she needs to drop off Esther's dental records, and Kate says that Esther has thus far REFUSED to go to the dentist. Something tells me this is another warning bell that should be noted. Another one comes right after this scene, as Kate walks in on Esther flawlessly playing classical music on the piano even though a) Esther had said she didn't know how to play and b) has only had a few lessons with Kate so far. That little liar. Kate is like 'Why did you lie?" and Esther replies that she merely pretended not to know because she thought Kate would enjoy teaching somebody, seeing as how Daniel couldn't give less of a shit and Max is deaf. I'm not sure whether this is touching or a huge burn, so let's go with a middle ground and say it's both. Kate and John fight loudly over this very issue later that night, as Esther listens to them in her room and smiles. Hmmm...

Next morning, the orphanage lady pays the family a visit, much to Esther's chagrin. This is because the orphanage lady has some stuff to tell John and Kate that she conveniently forgot to disclose before Esther was adopted out. Firstly, at her old school some kid "accidentally" stabbed himself through the jaw with scissors and Esther was suspiciously present at the scene. And secondly, that fire in her old family's house that only she escaped was caused by arson. Both of these things would have been extremely helpful to know before anyone adopted the little demon child, don't you agree? Naturally, Esther is listening to all of this and damn it if she's going to let that orphanage bitch ruin the good thing she's got going here. She enlists the help of Max by telling her that there's a "mean lady" who has come to take her away and won't Max help her? Max agrees to this, presumably because she saw what Esther did at the playground and has decided it would be best to not get on her bad side. Or, you know, because Esther points a gun at her head and invites her to play Russian Roulette if she doesn't.

So, as the orphanage lady is leaving the house, Esther and Max are waiting for her by an overpass. The plan is for Max to rush out in front of the car so that the woman will have to stop and get out, at which point Esther will ambush her with a hammer to the skull. That's....a fucking terrifying plan coming from the head of a 9 year old. Especially since Esther succeeds in killing her, making Max help her hide the body. Ho. Lee. Shit. This kid doesn't fuck around, that much is clear. Macaulay Culkin WISHES he was this badass in The Good Son. When the deed is finished the girls get into Daniel's treehouse. As Esther washes the blood off her face and hides the evidence in a backpack under the floorboard, she warns Max not to say anything because she can be sent to jail for helping hide the body. This poor kid is going to be traumatized forever when all this is over.

Daniel sees them exit the treehouse and is all "WTF?" Unfortunately, Esther knows he was watching and ambushes him in bed that night with a pair of scissors to the throat. She warns him that he better not open his fat mouth and blab or else she'll cut off a certain bodily appendage. For all her evilness, Esther has her awesome moments. She has her first therapy session the next day and manages to win over the therapist with her creepy-kid charm. As the therapist has a private pow-wow with the parents (and basically says that all the perceived problems with Esther are all in Kate's head), Esther has a random temper tantrum in the bathroom. Meanwhile, the body of Sister Abigail (the orphanage lady) has been found and Kate is, to say the least, a tad suspicious of Esther by now. John, however, is firmly in the camp of believing Esther isn't capable of such a thing because she's a child. Whatever. Esther is in her room flicking a fluorescent light on and off in order for us to see that she has painted decidedly ghoulish pictures with fluorescent paint over the normal ones she has been doing.

Kate has had enough and decides she's going to investigate into Esther's past. She soon finds that the Russian orphanage that Esther supposedly was at before St. Mariana's has no record of her. How odd. One wonders how she even came to be with the previous, burned-to-a-crisp foster family, then. The next morning is supposed to be Esther's dentist appointment and she REALLY doesn't want to go. This dentist thing must be especially important, because this is the second time it's been mentioned. John is the only parent home so he agrees to let Esther skip her appointment and the two of them sit and paint pictures together. Esther complains that it doesn't seem like Kate is all that enchanted with her, so John suggests that maybe she (Esther) could do something nice for Kate. This is where my earlier prediction about the memorial plant comes true, as Esther's good deed is to pick flowers for Kate. From the plant.

Needless to say, Kate is fucking pissed and would probably have beaten Esther to a pulp if Esther hadn't broken free from Kate's death grip and ran upstairs. Kate is all "She did that on purpose!!!!!" and John takes Esther's side and insists that she was merely trying to do something nice. John is kind of an idiot and is starting to annoy me.

Esther, meanwhile, seizes the opportunity presented to her by Kate grabbing her so hard in her fury over the plant. While everybody is sleeping that night, she quietly sneaks out to the garage and breaks her own arm, then wakes John up and tells him Kate did it. This kid is smart. A calculating bitch, but smart. John takes Esther to the hospital (which I have an issue with, and I will explain what that is when we get to the ending) and makes Kate sleep on the couch when they get home, while he stays in the bedroom with Esther to make sure she's ok. Kate goes out to the liquor store and buys two bottles of wine, but ends up pouring them down the sink because damn if she's going back off the wagon. Good for you, Kate.

The next morning in the school parking lot, while Kate is attending to Daniel's broken backpack, Esther quietly puts the car in reverse and releases the emergency brake, causing the car (with Max inside) to go a-rollin' down a hill and land in a pile of snow. Max is fine, but Kate is at the breaking point and tells John she wants Esther out of the damn house. John replies by producing Kate's empty wine bottles and says either she goes to rehab or he's going to leave with the kids. Meanwhile, Daniel seizes the opportunity while Esther is in the shower to ask Max what she knows about her. Instead of just conducting this conversation is sign language, he speaks and signs at the same time so that Esther will be sure to hear every freaking word he says. Because he is a dumbass.

Esther turns up the bad-assery up a notch that night by letting Kate know that she's read her diary, and even quotes a passage about the miscarriage to prove it. Then she ominously remarks that Kate has taken her family for granted and that it's too late. Creepy. Kate steps up her investigation by harrassing St. Mariana's for information, but they don't have any. She decides that maybe Esther's Bible contains some helpful hints, and discovers that a) there are several pictures of different men hidden amongst the pages and b) the Bible was issued at some sort of institution. Good to know.

The next day, Kate calls the institution and discovers that it's not an orphanage, but a mental hospital. Kate thinks maybe Esther's birth mother was a patient and faxes the institute a picture of Esther. Meanwhile, Daniel breaks into his treehouse looking for the evidence Esther hid there. Unfortunately for him, Esther is waiting for him. She traps him in there and sets it on fire, and he injures his neck jumping to the ground.

So, everyone winds up at the hospital. This was actually not Esther's plan, as she had been intending to kill him with a large fallen log but was interrupted. While John and Kate are arguing over whether Esther is the guilty party, Esther and Max, along with John's mother, are sitting in the waiting room. Esther asks Grandma if she can have a dollar for the soda machine. Grandma replies that Kate wants Esther to stay where she is, pauses, and gives her a dollar. Grandma is kind of a bitch, but that was hilarious. Esther is not, of course, going to the soda machine. She is actually going to Daniel's room to finish him off, which she almost accomplishes, except that the doctors manage to revive him. Kate is on the warpath and when Esther comes around the corner drinking a Mountain Dew like nothing is wrong, Kate knocks her to the ground and is sedated.

Since Kate must stay the night at the hospital, John takes Max and Esther home. This is when Esther puts her master plan into action. She starts by taking one of Kate's little black dresses and cutting it to fit her. Then she puts on 500 pounds of hooker makeup. I think I know where this is going, and I am uncomfortable. And I'm right, because Esther makes her way downstairs and plops down next to John on the couch looking like this:

It's a far cry from the Laura Ingalls look she's been sporting this whole movie, that's for damn sure. John is drunk and doesn't even know half of what's going on, although he does take a moment to ask her what exactly is up with the pancake makeup before half passing out again. The uncomfortableness is turned up to eleven when Esther starts trying to kiss him. Thankfully, John gathers his wits enough to bolt up off the couch and be all "What the HELL?" He tells her to go to her room and expect to be sent back to the orphanage as soon as can be arranged. Esther is all "Stop talking to me like I'm a child!"

Have you figured out what the big twist is yet? Go on, think about it. Or just keep reading.

At the hospital, Kate receives a call from the institution. They have received the picture of Esther that was faxed over earlier, and they've got some surprising news for Kate. The picture, they say, is not of a little girl at all. No, it's a picture of a former patient of theirs named Leena who, according to their records, was born in 1976. That's right. Esther's secret is that she is a 33 year old woman with proportional dwarfism.

I know. I was shocked too. I'll give you a moment to go back over all the evidence that now adds up. The neck and wrist ribbons (they cover up scars from her trying to escape her strait jacket). The Raggedy Ann dresses (they hide her boobs and hips better than jeans and T shirts). The locked bathroom door. The whole dentist thing. Remember when I said I took issue with her being taken to the hospital for the broken arm? They would have totally been able to figure out she wasn't a child when they took her x-ray and saw her bones. But I guess I'll let that little plot hole slide.

Apparently, Esther/Leena's MO is to be adopted by a family and eventually try to seduce the father. If she fails, everybody is killed. So it doesn't take a genius to figure out what her next course of action is. As Kate breaks out of the hospital and hightails it home, Esther turns the power off and quickly stabs John to death while Max watches. There's no way that child won't be seriously fucked up for life after this is over. No way. Kate arrives home and tries to find Max while Esther hunts down both of them. Girl is on the warpath and she's going to kick ass and take names.

A chase ensues that ends up in the greenhouse, where Kate smashes the ceiling on top of Esther and assumes she is dead. She isn't, of course. That would be too easy for a film such as this. As the cops arrive (about 30 minutes after Kate called them...wonderful law enforcement department they have there), Esther ambushes Kate outside near a frozen pond and they both fall in. Max saves the day by shooting the fuck out of Esther, distracting her enough for Kate to kick her square in the neck. And all's well that ends well.

On the whole, Orphan wasn't really anything new or ground breaking, but I do have to give it points for having a relatively original twist.

That's it for now. Stay tuned for next time when I recap the hell out of Exorcist II: The Heretic.