The Orphanage Review
by tom elce (dr-pepperite AT hotmail DOT com)March 19th, 2008
The Orphanage (2007)
Rating: 4.5 / 5
Reviewed by Tom Elce
Director: Juan Antonio Bayona
Cast: Belén Rueda, Fernando Cayo, Roger Príncep, Mabel Rivera, Montserrat Carulla, Andrés Gertrúdix, Alejandro Campos, Edgar Vivar, Geraldine Chaplin
MPAA Rating: R
BBFC Rating: 15
"The Orphanage" is destined to draw comparison to "The Devil's Backbone," producer Guillermo del Toro's frightening and atmospheric 2004 ghost story, in which another orphanage is at the heart of supernatural goings-on involving apparitions of children. Directed by Juan Antonio Bayona, "The Orphanage" (or "El Orfanato" in it's native Spain) stands on it's own feet, however, similarities to the aforementioned spine-tingler extending to the film's steadily heightening atmosphere and love for dark corners, the story treatment itself being decidedly different as Bayona - or, more correctly, scripter Sergio G. Sánchez - takes a traditional-style ghost story and stands it opposite a similarly haunting tale of a mother's loss. The end effect is every bit nerve-shredding, but also weighty and emotionally challenging.
Returning to the orphanage she stayed at as a child, Laura (Belén Rueda) takes husband Carlos (Fernando Cayo) and adopted 7-year-old son Simón (Roger Príncep) to the long-abandoned home with the intent of opening up a loving home for children with special needs. Something dear to them, Laura and Carlos' desire to run such a home stems from the very fact that their adopted son himself has a serious illness (Simón is HIV-positive). This is unbeknownst to him until Simón mysteriously discovers the truth and confronts Laura with it, alleging that he learned that he could die young from a new assortment of imaginary friends he meets nearby in a cove. Initially dismissive of his friends' existence (they say to Simón they understand he overheard about his illness during a conversation between Laura and a well- meaning social worker), they, or rather, Laura, begin to reevaluate the opinion that Simón friends are fictitious when he mysteriously disappears.
"The Orphanage" is as frightening in it's story of Laura's great loss as it is in the supernatural elements dictating her actions in the weeks and months following Simón's disappearance. Her desperate attempt to find her son in the nearby coves in which he met his new friends is painful to watch, the anguish on Laura's face now that she has realised her son may have been taken is palpable, and the scene stays with you just as much as a preceding sequence in which she first comes face-to-sack with one of Simón's supposedly non-existant friends, the sack-masked Tomás - whose origins, also, are revealed over Bayona's film's intoxicating 105 minutes. In fact, as "The Devil's Backbone" was more about the fascism suffocating a particular orphanage in Spain with supernatural borders surrounding it's story, "The Orphanage" is more a terrifying portrait of a mother's probable breakdown following the unimaginable than it is a tale of haunting and ghostly apparitions. That "The Orphanage" is such a powerful ghost- horror movie when it wants to be seals the deal.
As the emotionally crippled Laura, Belén Rueda turns in a lead performance of astounding, mesmerizing strength. She sells every emotion that her character feels, bereft of broadness or anything histrionic as she so believably portrays a woman whose world has been torn about that it is difficult to watch, if only for all the right reasons. In a movie of great performances, it is Rueda who effortlessly steals the show. Which is the measure of the woman, her central acting outshining that of Fernando Cayo, himself not too shabby in his role as Simón's father Carlos, who struggles to hold out the hope that Laura still does as more time passes by without a trace of his son being found. As said son, young Roger Príncep does very well. So well that, when he disappears we too wish to understand and know what has happened to him. Otherwise, Geraldine Chaplin shines in the few scenes she features as a medium brought to Laura and Carlos' home to investigate the presences Laura adamantly believes exist in her household.
Scripted in a way by Sergio G. Sánchez that rapidly confirms suspicions over the reality of Simón's friends only to keep viewers in the dark (just like Laura) for the following scenes, "The Orphanage" majestically unfolds as more details come out about the orphanage's history, the origins of Tomás and the true identity of the suspect social worker (Montserrat Carulla) who the authorities insist is not a known social worker. Sánchez's storytelling is smooth and concise, the atmosphere growing increasingly foreboding as the minutes tick by and the plot brilliantly unfolds. The connections made between the childhood stories of Tomás and Laura, for example, are splendidly realised, taking the viewer by surprise in their simultaneous intricacy and mystery.
Directed by Juan Antonio Bayone with a genuine understanding of what his film sets out to achieve, lensed by cinematographer Óscar Faura with beautiful, if haunting precision that serves as a gorgeous aesthetic to an increasingly dark and gritty central tale, and acted out superlatively by all involved, "The Orphanage" is a horror triumph. The scariest film that I have seen all year, director Bayona's rattling film may owe something to producer del Toro's own inspired works, but it also stands alone as it's own very unsettling work of horror genius. Speaking as someone who loves a horror movie done well more than any other genre, "The Orphanage" is a satisfying, scary film that gets the job done, splendidly well.
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