The tragic loss of their unborn child has devastated Kate and John, taking a toll on both their marriage and Kate’s fragile psyche, as she is plagued by nightmares and haunted by demons from her past. Struggling to regain some semblance of normalcy in their lives, the couple decides to adopt another child. At the local orphanage, both John and Kate find themselves strangely drawn to a young girl named Esther. Almost as soon as they welcome Esther into their home, however, an alarming series of events begins to unfold, leading Kate to believe that there’s something wrong with Esther–this seemingly angelic little girl is not what she appears to be. Concerned for the safety of her family, Kate tries to get John and others to see past Esther’s sweet facade. But her warnings go unheeded until it may be too late…for everyone.
Genre Horror
Director Jaume Collet-Serra
Cast Vera Farmiga, Peter Sarsgaard, Isabelle Fuhrman, CCH Pounder
Studio Warner Brothers
Senayan City XXI – Jakarta,
The first 15 minutes of Orphan were unpromising, with its pop out scares and dream sequences. However, I kept my eyes open and grew to see that Orphan is a fascinating sociological document and a superior, intelligent entertainment.
Since you probably have not seen Orphan, here is the plot summary. Kate 
Coleman (Vera Famiga) is a mother of two with a troubled past. Her career as a pianist and teacher is derailed, she had drinking problems, and she may have been the cause of her surviving daughter’s deafness (either the movie or me is not clear about this). She also has a son, but a third child died at or before birth. Kate and her architect husband John (Peter Sarsgaard), in the wake of all this domestic tragedy, decide to adopt. A visit to an orphanage results in the couple welcoming home Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman), an Eastern European 13-year-old of preternatural talent and maturity. The son takes an instant dislike to the girl; but she forms an alliance with her deaf sister; meanwhile at school, Esther’s mean girl enemies start having accidents. Though the whole thing was Kate’s idea, she begins to have doubts about Esther and the adoption, especially since Esther has a knack for twisting the knife in the vulnerable woman’s psyche. John is unable to see what Kate is talking about, and Kate’s shrink takes Esther’s side. At a certain point in the plot, the viewer is let in on the truth of Kate’s worries, and the rest of the film is a race to see who will prevail, Kate and her maternal instinct, or the unnaturally observant and seductive Esther.
This is pulp material and largely preposterous, but within those limitations, if such they be, Orphan (credited to writers Alex Mace and David Leslie Johnson, and directed by House of Wax auteur Jaume Collet-Serra ) is a rather fascinating scrutinizing of real concerns that people have. The critics could not see this. For one thing, they viewed it as a horror film, when in fact, though it has the trappings of a thriller, in reality it is more of an old fashioned “women’s picture” a weepy about a put upon mother. The film is wholly behind the attitudes and experiences of Kate. It takes her side. It views the world from her perspective, so much so that we find ourselves as mad at John for not seeing the obvious as Kate is. The opening sequence of the film is a meditation on the horrors of childbirth; not everyone has such fears of this beautiful, biological act, but enough people do to that, they will be particularly freaked out by certain medical moments in those first few minutes.
Moreover, we all know how hyper-protective and micro managing today’s 
upwardly mobile parents are. Orphan preys on a fear that families have of the tether (whatever that other may be) invading the home and taking it over, casting out the mother and seducing the father. I do not know how real such fears are, but any social class that obsessed with the minutia of their children’s day-to-day lives must have a bunch of irrational – and maybe even rational – worries. Orphan also utilizes whatever worries westerners might have about Russia. Though perhaps it is not been publicized as being as scary as its old incarnation, the Soviet Union, that isn’t for want of trying by some governments. Russia seems now to be richly competent in oil barony, corrupt politicians, gangsters – and now bad seeds.