Orphan: It'll Scare You Parentless

Have you seen Orphan yet? It’s like the Citizen Kane of our time, except instead of a sled, there is a homicidal adopted child.

You should see this movie. Not only did I enjoy Orphan, but I knew I would enjoy it because I was spoiled. My roommate’s friend reads scripts for a living and he read the Orphan screenplay a few years back. He says he is shocked it was actually produced since it was one of the five worst scripts he’s ever read, which is saying something for someone who does just that day in and day out.  I agreed to be spoiled since I figured it was a film I would never actually take the time to see down the road, but after hearing the plot and gimmick, I knew I had to see it.

For this reason, I’m just going to spoil the whole damn thing below. If you’re willing to take my word and stop reading, good, just go see the film. But I figure in this case it doesn’t hurt to just tell you everything that happens, because knowing just made me actually want to view it even more.

SPOILERS SPOILERS OHMGUH SO MANY SPOILERS BELOW

So we start with Kate, the film’s protagonist, who immediately experiences a bloody miscarriage. It’s exaggeratedly gory since Kate’s merely having a nightmare, but apparently it happened a while back in real life, which is important to note since it sets up the ongoing character trait of Kate being a failure of a mother. I mean, she can’t even give birth right, you know? On top of it all, Kate is a recovering alcoholic, takes anti-depressants, lost her job, and her daughter almost died in a pond due to her neglect. SHE IS DOING THE BEST SHE CAN!

At least Kate has a seemingly supportive husband, John. Yes, that’s right, their names are John and Kate, which, intentionally or not, foreshadows the state of their marriage. Kate has two living kids aside from the stillborn. There’s the son, Danny, who pretty much does nothing, and Max, the deaf daughter, played by Marlee Matlin, I think. Max loves to have Mommy Kate read her the story about the time she miscarried and her sister went to heaven every night before bed. So Kate has to use sign language to convey her tragic tale, and Jesus, that would drive me to drink and deaf Max laughs like it’s the best story ever. Consequently Kate is a wreck, but she wants to adopt to fill the void left from her flawed vagina, show the world she can raise a kid that won’t nearly drown, and replace the obnoxious handicapped dud she already has.

So Kate and John go to the orphanage where John spots a snowman and calls it a “snorphan.” It’s the movie’s only joke, aside from the running miscarriage gag, and is kind of funny, if not out of place. He takes a quick liking to the strange Russian orphan, Esther because she is a brilliant painter. They figure they might as well adopt a child with preexisting gifts and talents since they can’t otherwise raise one on their own.

Anyway, Esther is totally weird because she lies, injures her classmate, uses the F-word, and won’t let her new mommy see her naked. Kate starts to have concerns. Then a nun from the orphanage shows up at the house to announce that she is finding some disturbing facts in Esther’s history, so Esther secretly follows the nun and bashes her head in with a hammer. Murdering a nun with a hammer is now totally on my bucket list.

Esther is afraid that brother Danny is suspicious and puts a knife to his crotch and threatens to “cut off [his] hairless prick before [he] even know how to use it.” That part is awesome and it shuts him up. Then Esther desecrates the stillborn memorial Kate built, which is evil, but probably necessary. She also tries to kill Max by taking the car out of park and letting it roll down a hill. Kate suspects Esther is evil, but can’t prove it, and everyone is all like “Oh, Kate, you’re just being you – a bad mom, why don’t you love your new daughter?” Then Esther intentionally breaks her own arm in a vise to make it seem like Kate is abusing her. And John wants a divorce!

But then Esther sets fire to a tree house while Danny’s in it – should have neutered his hairless prick while she had a chance – and he is hospitalized and even though Esther removes his life support and suffocates him, the doctors ultimately say “he will be okay” as if there was never cause for alarm, mainly because he’s boring and we don’t need him in the story anymore.

Kate knows Esther is responsible and freaks out until she needs to be sedated because she is the worst.mother.ever. Back at home, Esther dresses like a child whore and tries to seduce her drunk father. He doesn’t fuck her, so she stabs him to death.

Meanwhile Kate gets a call from a mental institution. Apparently, and THIS IS THE BIG TWIST: Esther is not a child, she is a 33-year-old insane woman from Estonia with proportional dwarfism posing as a child to infiltrate families and kill them. No, really, she’s done it several times before, even!

Now the deranged dwarf whore is stalking the deaf child to kill her, too. But a medicated Kate gets back in time to have an epically bloody battle. And every time you think it’s over, Esther is still alive because midgets won’t die! Finally, though, the film ends with a showdown on the frozen pond between Esther and Kate. Losing the fight, Esther reaches out and says, “Help me, Mommy.” Kate screams, “I am not your fucking Mommy!” and kills her in the pond, even though she promised not to let her kids die in the pond anymore. Way to be a bad mom again, Kate. At least Max can suddenly hear again! Okay, no, that’s a lie, but Kate did manage to get rid of that dumb shit husband without wasting money on a divorce lawyer.

If being a good mom means saving your children from homicidal little people, Kate is the best mom of them all! And they all lived happily ever after! Well, except for the dead and maimed characters, and the stillborn. But, you know, at least we all learned a valuable lesson: never ever adopt. That’s just asking for trouble.