Little Orphan Lost

With its almost complete lack of sex appeal, gratuitous violence and cheap scare tactics, The Orphanage is a refreshing look at the horror genre. It calmly sneaks up on its audience in the same way that the supernatural plot slowly unfolds around the main characters. It begins innocently enough, with easily rationalized oddities, which gradually develop to find the participants entirely enveloped, suddenly drawn into this slowly evolving eerie world.

The Orphanage plays out with a ghostly patience, never rushing the paranormal predicament that plagues the main character, Laura (Belen Rueda). This patience can be attributed, in part, to the fact that it took nearly 10 years for the script (written by Sergio G. Sanchez) to come to fruition. The ceaseless persistence of the film’s pacing allows first-time director Juan Antonio Bayona to tell the spine-chilling story through a step-by-step method that somehow never lags with tedium. It’s almost a how-to memorandum regarding the horror genre; every plot point, however mundane, is critical in bringing the film to its oddly tender conclusion.

At its heart, The Orphanage is a dark re-telling of Peter Pan. It tells the story of former orphan, Laura, who returns with her husband Carlos to the antique orphanage where she lived as a child in order to raise their terminally ill adopted son. Their son, Simón, knows neither that he is HIV-positive nor that he is adopted. However, he bears a strong sense of preternatural understanding that he will remain a child, a lost boy, forever. Similarly, Laura also feels a rootless resistance toward her adult life. She is the Wendy – the unlucky one who had to grow up – to her friends, who forever remain children in her mind.

While Laura and her husband attempt to re-vamp the striking old mansion and re-open it as a school for mentally retarded children, Simón begins making imaginary friends, a quirk attributed by Laura to his loneliness in the large old house. Soon, however, these imaginary friends begin taking on lifelike qualities, culminating when Simón mysteriously disappears during the opening reception for his mother’s school.

From here, a myriad of mysterious occurrences converge to create a system of clues for Laura and Carlos to follow. Similar to the scavenger hunts that Simón used to play with his “imaginary” orphanage friends, one clue unfolds leading to the next for Laura and Carlos to follow.

The duality of the world Bayona creates allows Laura to be seen in two different ways throughout the film: either as a crazy grieving mother or as a woman inhabiting a world just outside of her spiritual grasp. Reflecting on the film, either version can be seen as plausibly realistic. The end of the film furthers this dual premise; depending on the viewer, it can be seen either as Laura’s almost optimistic portrayal of the supernatural, or else it can be viewed as Carlos’ tragic reality of a family torn apart by grieving.

Following in the footsteps of last year’s sensational fantasy Pan’s Labyrinth, The Orphanage reclaims a flair for the horror genre, which has been nearly eclipsed by the seemingly endless stream of Saw movies and Jamie Lee Curtis remakes that have been cluttering the market with their constant theatrical releases. Produced by Pan’s Labyrinth’s director Guillermo del Toro, The Orphanage rediscovers childhood fears that have since been lost to adult rationality. It reminds viewers that, at the heart of every horror, lies a very human tragedy.

Tags: Belen Rueda, gratuitous violence, Guillermo del Toro, Juan Antonio Bayona, paranormal, Sergio G. Sanchez, sex appeal, The Orphanage