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The Orphanage (El Orfanato)
One worth bringing home
Reviewed by Dan Stoffel
Published on 01/28/2010
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A
Rated R
Directed by Juan Antonio Bayona
Starring Belén Rueda, Fernando Cayo, Roger Príncep, Mabel Rivera and Montserrat Carulla
I just love stumbling upon a film I had never heard of and having it blow me out of the water. Thanks again to Netflix for suggesting a rental, based this time on my love of “Pan’s Labyrinth” (which makes a lot of sense) and “The Sea Inside” (I suppose simply because it’s Spanish). Along comes “The Orphanage,” a wonderfully atmospheric ghost story from 2007 that will probably become a permanent part of my DVD library.
Laura (Belén Rueda) grew up in an orphanage in the Spanish countryside but was adopted as a young girl.
Years later, married to a successful doctor, she decides to buy the now-abandoned orphanage to raise their own adopted son Simón (Roger Príncep) and to care for a handful of handicapped children. But when Simón’s games with his imaginary friends begin to take an ominous turn, Laura wonders if they might not be so imaginary.
Produced by Guillermo del Toro (who directed “Pan’s Labyrinth” and is now working on the “Hobbit” films) and directed by Juan Antonio Bayona, “The Orphanage” doesn’t rely on fancy special effects, cheap scares or buckets of blood to tell its story. Instead, strong acting combines with an intelligent, emotionally-powerful script to create not just a very good ghost story, but a very good film in its own right. But when it does act as a ghost story, it’s one of the best in the last decade. Particularly effective is a scene in which a medium goes into a trance to try to communicate with the dead, while five people (and we the viewer) watch her movements on remote cameras; it’s such a simple yet important scene, executed flawlessly.
Belén Rueda is especially good as Laura, who refuses to give up on her son and must change her perceptions about the world around her. She goes through a range of emotions, from joy to surprise, anger to fear, love to shame, and is completely convincing at every turn. Another star is the cinematography, as the beautiful vistas of Spain are showcased along with the wonderful old house that used to be an orphanage. Add to all of this a fantastic ending that, like “Pan’s Labyrinth,” rejects the temptation to take the easy way out, and “The Orphanage” is a don’t-miss film not just for ghost-story fans, but for any fans of cinema.
The one piece of bad news about this film is that it is being re-made in English. I can’t imagine anything improving on the original, including not having to read subtitles. Thankfully, Guillermo del Toro is producing the remake, so we can only hope that he will maintain the beauty of the original, but we’ll have to wait until at least next year to find out.
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