Movie Review - The Orphanage

The Orphanage (AKA El Orfanato)



From the people who brought you Pan's Labyrinth! Well, sort of... You see, I was all thinking that Guillermo Del Toro, director of the aforementioned movie, had directed this film as well; I guess I missed the above poster, since it does clearly state "Guillermo Del Toro presents" and "Directed by J.A. Bayona" is right at the bottom. And what does "PRESENTS" actually mean, anyway? I guess it's not important now...

Directed by Juan Antonio Bayona, The Orphanage stars Belén Rueda as Laura, a woman who returns to the orphanage that she grew up in before she was adopted. She now has a family - a rather busy husband, Carlos (Fernando Cayo), and an adopted son, Simón (Roger Princep), who we quickly learn is HIV+. Laura and Carlos have decided to move back to the old orphanage, fixing it up and turning it into a home for special children.


There's a haunting past to the orphanage that Laura is slowly forced to uncover, however, as Simón continues to see "imaginery" children that lead him to do strange things, including a hide-and-seek game where Simón uncovers the truth about his adoption and disease. Eventually, Simón goes missing at a party, and Laura and Carlos are thrown into a missing child case. Laura has had her own strange encounters at the house, though, and thinks that ghosts are playing a game with her. As she is led further and further into the orphanage's dark past, she also slowly unravels a mystery that happened at the orphanage right after she left.

The Orphanage's plot is not a new one - in fact, it represents just about every ghost story ever put on film. All of the same elements are there: a child who can see ghosts before the adults can, check; a knowing adult who has to uncover the truth, check; ominous house with more than its fair share of secrets, check; an unbeliever, check. While the story doesn't really distinguish itself from the rest of the ghost "genre," the execution of the scares and the tension does. The fact of the matter is, the story feels very grounded in reality. Laura and Carlos seem like a promising family, trying to do a good thing by accepting special needs children into their homes, and also adopting a child that has HIV. There's a certain realism that the small tidbits about the family's life outside of the haunting provide - it gives the characters a rounded feel, one that presents a greater sense of dread after Simón goes missing.


Ultimately, the film hinges on the strength of the relationship between Simón and Laura. To believe in Laura's faith that the ghosts have stolen Simón, or even trust that Laura is not crazy herself, we must feel like the love between Simón and Laura is real. Both Rueda and Princep bring about this relationship, sharing in bonding mother-son moments that express Laura's later obsession with finding Simón. It works because of the three-dimensional characters, but I couldn't help but think something was missing with Carlos. He is barely in the film, and when he is, he seems less than enthusiastic in believing Laura.

But what is it about the horror that makes this ghost story better than most? Part of it is the slow-moving camera. Everything about the pacing of the film feels surreal and sluggish, and long camera shots give the audience the opportunity to fall victim to quick scares that pop up at the last second. There's added tension that builds with long, linear shots. When zooming in, there is only one thing on the screen to look at, but there is always that tense moment where the audience becomes so distracted by what they're looking at that they're not thinking about the next moment. It's almost always effective, even when it is done deliberately with no scare at the climax.


But there is also something very haunting about the overall tone and atmosphere of the film. A scene in which a medium is investigating the house is very afflicting; night-vision cameras are set up, and the audience only gets a view of the screen, rather than following the medium. This is more ominous than the latter idea because we don't know what to expect. All we can see is what the camera sees. The medium picks up sounds on the recorder, childrens' voices that are crying and screaming in agony. It's a seat-gripping moment for sure, and while it ends only slightly more tense than where it began, that moment of dread sticks with the viewer through the rest of the movie.

In essence, The Orphanage rarely has any "real" scares. Most of the audience's fear lies in the tension of being lost in the house with no anchor of what might happen next. It's disorienting and quite different from other horror movies that force scares on the viewer rather than lightly hinting at them. There is very little in terms of a "slap-in-the-face" moment; instead, the audience can make of the scene what they will.


The past of the orphanage is really quite depressing, and all of the plot fits into place towards the end of the film. There is a reliance on recapping clues and foreshadowing from the beginning of the film which seems somewhat Saw-esque and too narrative, but it's needed to get the whole gist of the film. The end is definitely not what one would expect, but also somewhat rewarding, and especially in Laura's case, a woman who has been in a limbo of her own as to her son's whereabouts.


The only big problem I had with the film was the fact that Laura seemed very oblivious to what the ghosts wanted from her. It was obvious from the beginning to the audience, although it took Laura about 9 months to catch on. Also, tense moments frequently ended in a less-than-climactic position, one that I thought could have really amped up the fear more. Of course, the film did not want to rely on blatant pop-up scares, but a couple of freakier scenarios could have catapulted The Orphanage ahead of its brothers and sisters.

The fact that The Orphanage gives its own brand of fairy-tale storytelling reinforces its own subject matter. The hide-and-seek game is interesting in an adventurous sort of way, although only loosely played out. Especially creative was the use of the knock-knock (red light-green light) game when Laura attempts to find her son, although I was a little disappointed when the tension disappeared.


The Orphanage takes a lot of the obvious ghostly drama from other films and reinterprets it to entertaining, scary fun. While it's not the best haunting film ever made, it does have a lot going for it - emotional trauma is more important here than, say, shock scares. The later plot is very haunting, but the happy ending leaves a warming of the heart. We know, at the end, that one of the reasons why there was such a lack of climactic scares is because the ghosts were never meant to be scary. They were there to help Laura find her son - although she's probably wishing they stopped playing the game with her and just told her where he was in the first place. In the end, everything turns out how it was meant to be, and we are both happy and sad - it's been a thrilling ride, but the darkness that used to fill the movie is gone, leaving only despondent feelings.

The Orphanage on Rotten Tomatoes