The Principals:
Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra. Starring Vera Farmiga, Peter Sarsgaard, CCH Pounder…
…and Isabelle Fuhrman (as THE ORPHAN).
GANDOLFINIFACE!
The Premise: A lonely couple lose a child so they adopt one that will try to kill them and the kids they have that didn’t die. Including a little deaf one. She can’t hear, and now they adopted some odd little bitch who might kill her deaf ass. What is the world coming to? The morale of the story is this: Though it seems nice, adopting a kid is batshit crazy sometimes.
Why it’s on FUCK KIDS week: She talks funny first of all. Rigid and cold elocution can piss out. She’s hiding a secret, so she’s a dick for that. She wears odd outfits that make her look like a frigid spinster, so screw her for that. She wears a stupid neck collar thing, which looks good on NO ONE. She connives a little deaf girl and her big brother, convincing them to let her carry on her evil plans, which is rude. And she makes that Galdolfiniface from True Romance when he’s trying to commit the killing blow on Patricia Arquette. There’s only room for ONE Galdolfiniface.
Is it Good:
It kind of is. Collet-Serra, despite the unfortunate hyphen, is a very good director. How else could something like House of Wax exist and not be a blight? I like this fellow and salivate at the prospect of him getting a really good project to showcase his skills. Plus, Farmiga rocks ass in this movie. She’s one of the really upper echelon actresses working today and it saddens me to see folks like Cameron Diaz and Reese Witherspoon and even Angelina Jolie getting getting chance after chance at high dollar prices to do inferior work. This is a cheezy concept given actual meat. It’s paced well, well shot and acted, and pretty effective. It’s not great, but it’s pretty solid as far as flicks like this go.
Missed opportunity: At the conclusion a card should have come up that said ENDORPHAN.
Is it Worth a Look: Yep. Especially if you sorta get hard at little girls in sexy eye makeup.
Random Anecdotes: The twist is silly, though it’s nice to see Karel Roden show up for 12 seconds to help deliver it. I’m pretty bored of Peter Sarsgaard. In the dream sequence that opens the film, I got a little icked out. All of the kids are really good in the film. They should do a sequel called Morephan.
Cinematic Soulmates: Nothing current. It’s kind of old fashioned in its execution and would be at home in the 70’s drama-centric horror niche. There’s not enough body horror or great material to compare it to a great work, but it’s a nice little engine that sorta could.
“YOU CAN’T DRAW AND QUARTER POUNDER!”