I’m going to start with a mini-rant here, but bear with me.
One pet peeve of mine is when studios put tags like “*Generic Big Name Director* Presents…” on the poster/box for a new movie when they served as a producer, but didn’t direct the movie themselves. Usually the director whose coattails they choose to ride is someone who has had major success in the genre (or a closely associated genre) of the movie to be released. I’m guessing the thought process among studio big shots goes something like this, “Well, we sure like this movie, but I’m pretty sure no one is going to pay to see it if it’s our director’s first major release and our star has never been on a magazine cover. What if we offered *Generic Big Name Director* a boat load of money to ‘be a producer’ and give it his seal of approval? No one will be able to resist shelling out their money to go see a movie if we put *Generic Big Name Director*’s name on the cover! It’s brilliant!” Sometimes this happens because it is feared that a truly quality movie is going to be overlooked and sometimes it happens because a studio is afraid a crappy movie is going to fail and they want to cover their asses.
The former is the case with El Orfanato whose poster displays Pan’s Labyrinth director Guillermo del Toro’s name in significantly bigger lettering than either the film’s star or its director. It upsets me because it takes the spotlight off director Juan Antonio Bayona, who really deserves a lot of credit for making a great movie. It also sucks because it just pumps up the already nearly inevitable comparisons between Bayona’s work and del Toro’s “Best Foreign Language Film” Oscar winner from last year, just because they are both Spanish language suspense/horror films that involve children. I think Kobe Bryant summed up my opinion best in a recent interview with ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith. When asked about whether he wanted to be the next Michael Jordan, Bryant replied, “Just let me be me.” He went on to acknowledge that even though Kobe does want to someday be considered the best basketball player ever, he doesn’t want to be “the next Jordan,” he just wants to be great in his own right. I wish the studio would have just let El Orfanato be its own movie and not forced it to be the “next” Pan’s Labyrinth in order to be considered great.
Ok, on to the review.
El Orfanato is the story Laura, a woman who, along with her husband and son, Simon, has recently purchased and moved back into the house that previously served as the orphanage in which she was raised many years earlier. Laura hopes to turn the home into a bit of a sanctuary for children herself, as she has dreams to adopt and care for several “special needs” children. Shortly after they move in, Simon begins telling his parents of several new invisible friends that he has made, which his parents attribute to an overactive imagination coupled with isolation from other children his age. After a few, particularly troubling incidents involving Simon and his invisible friends, he and his mother have a falling out on the day that she has invited the families of the children she plans to adopt to her house for a party. After Laura has a disturbing encounter with a mysterious child wearing a burlap mask, she realizes that Simon has gone missing. After months of searches turning up no trace of Simon, Laura begins to open to the possibility that their may have been a supernatural involvement in her son’s disappearance. Her investigation into the history of her house, and of herself, leads to some frightening discoveries and a stunning and emotionally jarring ending that is on par with any of the genre’s greatest works.
Screenwriter Sergio G. Sánchez crafted a masterful script and Bayona has brought it to its maximum potential, creating an astounding amount of fear and suspense for a movie that features virtually zero blood. Belén Rueda, who plays Laura, does an exceptional job with her role, hitting all of the motherly emotions. I speak very little Spanish, but the quality of her delivery comes across in any language. Spanish film icon Geraldine Chaplin (who has 111 film/TV credits on her IMDB page) also delivers an excellent performance as Aurora, a medium that Laura hires to help investigate her son’s disappearance. She exudes the perfect balance of conviction and craziness to make her character come alive.
El Orfanato is a film that I would recommend to anyone. I truly think that this is a work, like Pan’s Labyrinth, which will appeal to the vast majority of viewers, even if they don’t traditionally like foreign language or horror films. The quality of the direction, script, and acting is all top notch; the degree of originality is also a tremendous accomplishment for a genre that often struggles to avoid formula driven gore fests. Go check it out next time you want to watch a scary movie with your girlfriend but don’t want to develop a case of Hostel/Saw-like nausea.
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I really liked this film too. It wasn’t at all what I expected. I guess I expected it to be more of a horror ghost movie but the plot was really strong. I loved the ending too but I won’t spoil that for anyone here. Anyway, good review and I definitely recommend the movie as well.