Today will explain to you a horror, mystery film from 2009, titled Orphan.
Spoilers ahead! This article contains spoilers, Take Care!Kate and her husband John walk into a hospital because she’s in labor. She gets wheeled away, as John stays behind to sign her in. Immediately, Kate starts bleeding. She wakes up in an operating room, surrounded by medical staff, but her husband isn’t there yet.
The whole situation feels strange and frightening to her, when the nurse tells her that her baby is dead. Kate can’t believe it. John comes in and starts filming the birth, as if nothing was wrong. The nurse hands her the infant.
Kate is screaming and suddenly, she wakes up in her bed. She gets up and goes to the restroom, looking at the scar on her belly. She takes a tablet. The next day, Kate is at psychotherapy, where Doctor Browning explains that nightmares as those are a normal response to the trauma of stillbirth.
Kate wonders if the nightmare was about that or about the fact that she will adopt a child soon. She thinks she might not be ready. Kate tells her therapist that she was considering buying some alcohol, to which Browning replies that the important thing is that she didn’t buy any at the end. Relating to the adoption, the therapist tells her that ultimately she has to decide if she will go through with it.
Kate goes to pick up her deaf daughter Max from school. She’s driving her home, but when she moves from a stop light distracted, she almost causes an accident. Later, Kate is seen playing the piano and composing music. She gets irritated by some noise she hears, so she goes outside and sees that Max is throwing a basketball on the wall.
She yells at her to stop and the kid apologizes. John arrives home with their son Daniel and the three of them goof around with the basketball. That night, Kate is putting Max to bed, when she asks her to read her a story. The story is about the child that died.
Max asks her if she’ll get a new sister. Before Kate goes to bed, she takes another tablet. She gets into bed with John and they talk about the adoption. She made her decision, they will go through with it.
Some time later, they are seen diving into an orphanage. Sister Abigail meets them upfront and tells them to look around. Kate stays on the first floor, looking at the little girls playing and John goes to the second floor. He hears a girl sing and walks inside the room, where Esther is painting.
She tells him an amazing story about the painting she’s making, as Kate and Abigail walk into the room. John introduces them and the three of them continue to talk. The girl says that nobody has ever talked to her before because she’s different. They seem to like her.
They talk to Abigail about adopting Esther. She tells them that she was originally from Russia and that the people who brought her to the US died in a house fire. But, all in all Abigail thinks that the girl is wonderful. Kate agrees.
Three weeks later, they pick her up from the orphanage and say goodbye to Abigail. In the car, Kate teaches Esther sign language. They reach the house and Max is excited to see them. Esther introduces herself to her instantly, asking Kate how much she can hear.
She tells her that she can hear just enough so that she can read peoples lips. Once inside, they’re met with grandma Barbara and Daniel. That night all of them give her welcome gifts, except Daniel, who already seems jealous of the girl, especially when she gives John a huge thank you hug. Daniel goes outside to the treehouse with his friends and they look through dirty magazines.
Esther and Max play in the snow, as Barbara and Kate talk about Max and about her plans to start teaching again once Esther is settled. Barbara seems to feel disappointed in Kate. There’s a storm brewing that night, as Kate gets ready to go to bed. Esther wakes up and goes to Max’s room.
John and Kate are making love, when there’s knock on the door and it’s the two girls asking to sleep in their bed. Esther wants to sleep next to John. The next morning, they’re all ready to leave the house and get to school, when Esther comes down the stairs in an fancy dress, prompting the other children to laugh. Kate wants to make sure if Esther really wants to wear that to school and the girl tells her that there is nothing wrong in being different.
Kate lets her wear the dress. Later, she is being welcomed in class by her teacher, when one of the kids makes fun of her. That day, Max and Esther play on the frozen lake, when Kate runs out, yelling that doing that isn’t allowed. Simultaneously, Daniel plays with a paintball gun and shoots a bird.
Esther and Max walk over and he’s very upset, but Esther gives him a large rock, telling him to put it out of its misery. He doesn’t want to do it, so she does it for him. Later, Esther goes to take a bath. Kate goes into her room to put away her laundry, but finds an old Bible stuck in a drawer.
She doesn’t hear Esther looking out of the bathroom as she looks through it and finds a photo of a man inside. At school, Daniel’s friends are making fun of him because of Esther, so he pushes her books over. When she goes to pick them up, a girl from her class finds her Bible and as they struggle for it, it falls on the ground. Esther picks it up, but the girl reaches for her choker, calling her a doggy.
Esther screams. Later, Kate is teaching her how to play the piano. Then she asks her about the incident at the school, but she doesn’t want to talk about it. Kate gives her a scrapbook, which she has already started for her, when Esther asks her about the baby she lost.
Kate tells her what happened, as she shows her the roses where they scattered her ashes. After dinner, thinking the kids are sleeping, Kate and John make love in the kitchen. Esther suddenly appears. The next morning, Kate goes to talk to her about it.
Esther seems unfazed as she paints, saying she knows about it and uses the f-word. Kate and John talk about it later and she thinks they should take her to a therapist. John thinks it’s overreacting to take the child to therapy for one dirty word. John takes the girls to a park and while they’re at a swing, one of his neighbors comes over to flirt with him.
Meanwhile, Esther’s bully comes into the playground as well. Esther’s attention is divided between her and John’s exchange with the neighbor. The bully is actually afraid of Esther and looks out for her as she goes to play in the castle. She wants to go down a slide when Esther pushes her suddenly, breaking her leg.
Max sees her do it. At diner that night, John talks to Esther about it, Max confirms the story that the girl slipped. Before they eat Esther prays and Max does the same. She even understands sign language better than Daniel.
He antagonizes her and starts calling her names, when the parents interject. He runs off, angry and cursing. John puts a lock on his treehouse as a punishment. Later, Kate is at the store with the girls, when sister Abigail calls her.
Esther refuses to talk to her, but Kate continues. She steps aside and tells sister Abigail about everything that has been happening, while Max reads her lips and recounts her words to Esther. That night, Esther plays the piano perfectly to Kate’s surprise. She asks why Esther pretended not to know how to play and the girl replies that she did it for her benefit.
That night, Kate and John argue about Esther and their argument spirals out of control. Esther hears them in the other room, contented. One day, sister Abigail comes over to the house. She talks to the parents about Esther, thinking that there might be something wrong with her.
She lists a few things that she might have done in the past, like hurting other children. The girl hears everything and goes to get Max, telling her that she needs to help her so the mean lady doesn’t take her away. Kate thinks that Abigail might be onto something, but John thinks she’s overreacting. Kate suggests they take her to a therapist and he agrees.
Meanwhile, Esther tells Max to find the keys to the treehouse, but instead she uses them to get a gun out of John’s safe. She takes the bullets out of the revolver, leaving one inside. She points it at Max, scaring her terribly. As Abigail leaves the house in her car, Esther takes Max to a bridge telling her that they will scare her so much, she’ll never want to come back.
As the car approaches, she pushes Max onto the street and Abigail almost hits the girl, swirls and crashes the car. Abigail finds Max crying, when Esther hits her with a hammer. She instructs Max to help her get Abigail off the road. They roll her down, but she’s still alive, so Esther finishes her off with the hammer.
The two of them go into the treehouse, where Esther hides her bloody clothes and the hammer. She tells Max that they’ll send her to jail too just for helping her. Esther then tells her that she loves her. Daniel sees them climb down the treehouse, but Esther sees him too.
That night, she comes into his room with a scalpel, threatening him not to say anything. The boy pees himself. John and Kate take Esther to see Browning, who talks to them about her as she waits outside. The therapist says that there is nothing wrong with the girl, but that Kate is in fact the problem.
She thinks Kate feels inadequate as a mother and is taking it out on Esther. John agrees with her reasoning. When they come back home, Kate gets a call from the orphanage and she’s told that sister Abigail hasn’t returned since the previous day. The police search for her and find her body where Esther left it.
A police officer is seen talking to Kate and John, saying they have no suspects. Esther is in her room switching the light of her aquarium on and off, showing a gruesome painting she has made of the house and the family. Kate searches online for information about disturbed children and shows her findings to John. He disagrees with her again and she tells him she won’t be seeing Doctor Browning anymore.
Kate is worried about who Esther is and says she’ll contact the orphanage in Russia, where Esther came from. When she makes the call, she finds out that there are no records of her previous to her arrival in the US. The next day, John goes to wake Esther up to take her to the dentist, but since she doesn’t want to go he promises to reschedule. They spend the day painting together and Esther tells him, that she thinks that Kate doesn’t like her.
Meanwhile, Kate is taking the other children to school and asks them about her. They lie, saying she’s never done anything wrong. That night, Esther comes in the kitchen telling Kate she has a present for her. She gives her a bucket of roses, picked from the place where Kate’s daughter’s ashes were scattered.
Kate gets upset and grabs her, but John tells her it was his fault. That same night, Esther goes to the garage and breaks her hand. Back in bed, she calls for John, telling him her arm hurts and when he checks it, he sees it’s been broken. They come back from the doctor and he’s tucking her in their bed, when Kate comes in.
He confronts her, but Kate says she didn’t grab her that hard. Later, she goes to a liquor store and buys two wine bottles. She gets a little drunk, but throws the rest of the open wine bottle down the drain. Kate drives the kids to school the following morning.
Daniel walks out of the car and his bag rips, so when Kate goes to help him, Esther puts the car in drive with Max still in there. Kate runs after the car, until it’s finally stopped by the snow. That night, Doctor Browning is in their house and Kate swears that she put the car in park and that Max is covering for Esther. John shows her the second wine bottle which Esther found.
The therapist tells her that she reserved a spot for her in a rehabilitation center, but Kate tells them her side of the story about the wine. They don’t believe her about the wine and about the accident. John thinks she’s being manipulative and gives her a week to go to rehab or he’ll leave and take the kids. Meanwhile, Esther tells Max that she’ll shoot her mom if she tells on her.
Later, Daniel goes into Max’s room and she tells him about Abigail and the treehouse. He says he’ll get the stuff from the treehouse, but Esther hears him. Kate gets up during the night and sneaks into Max’s room. Suddenly, Esther turns the light on.
They go back and forth, but Esther shows her the diary she’d been keeping, letting her know she’d read it. She antagonizes her, but Kate doesn’t fall for it. The next day, Kate calls the orphanage again and when she doesn’t find out anything, she goes to get Esther’s Bible. She finds it hidden in a plush toy and finds pictures of men inside.
She sees the words Saarne Institute on it and immediately searches for what they mean online. She calls the number she finds and they tell her that the Institute is actually mental hospital and not an orphanage. Meanwhile, Daniel sneaks out of the house to get the stuff from the treehouse. Esther follows him there and starts pouring fuel over the evidence, then lights it and continues pouring fuel over Daniel.
She locks him inside the burning treehouse. He calls for his mother, but she’s too busy investigating Esther. Daniel gets on the roof, crying for help. He falls onto a wooden beam, but slips and falls on the ground, as Esther watches him.
Suddenly, Kate sees the fire, as Esther goes over Daniel to kill him with a rock. Max pushes her away and Kate arrives before she can do anything more. Daniel is alive. They’re all in the hospital, when the doctor comes in and informs them that he has a serious neck injury and might not remember what happened.
Esther is worried about that. Kate tells John what she found out about Esther, but he’s still not convinced. While they are arguing, Esther goes to Daniel’s room. Max knows what’s going on and goes after her.
Esther starts suffocating Daniel with his pillow, as Max goes to get her parents. The alarm in Daniels room goes off and the doctors revive him. Kate confronts Esther and slaps her. Orderlies grab her and sedate her.
She misses an important phone call. Later, Kate wakes up and immediately asks about Daniel. She begs John not to let Esther near Max, as she stays overnight in the hospital. That night, Max takes of her hearing aid and her dad tucks her in.
Esther comes in and grabs the aid when she says goodnight to her. John goes down to the living room and gets drunk. Esther walks downstairs, dressed up like an adult and sits next to John, who doesn’t understand what’s happening. Esther starts kissing him, but he recoils.
He explains that he doesn’t love her the way him and Kate love each other. John tells her to go to her room, but she tells him not to talk to her like she’s a child. He says he will be calling the orphanage tomorrow about her. Esther goes to her room and cries.
Meanwhile, Kate gets a call from a doctor in the Saarne Institute. He recognizes Esther and tells her to get her family out of the house, then to call the police. He tells her that Esther isn’t a little girl, but that she has some kind of hormone disorder that only makes her look like a child. She is in fact an adult woman.
Esther was one of the most violent patients in the hospital and when she fought her restraints, they left scars on her hands and neck. The doctor tells Kate that she has killed at least 7 people. Kate is rushing to get home, confused how she could fool them. Back at the house, Esther trashes her room and removes all of her make-up used to hide the fact that she’s not a little girl.
John goes to check on her and finds her paintings all over the wall. Kate is calling him as she’s driving home, but the power goes out in the house before he can pick up. She calls the police. John finds a light and looks through the house, when Esther stabs him.
He’s incapacitated, but alive, so she keeps on stabbing him until she kills him. Max sees her and she goes after her next. Kate drives so fast toward the house that she crashes into it and immediately goes upstairs. She finds John, then she realizes Max is in trouble and tries to find her.
She looks in her room, but when she doesn’t find her goes into the bathroom. Suddenly, Esther shoots her. Kate hides in her bedroom, but fortunately Esther doesn’t find her there, because she’s hidding outside of the window. Max hides in the garden and Esther is coming for her there, as Kate sees her from the glass roof.
Esther shoots after her again, then finds Max and shoots after her too. Max escapes as Kate breaks the glass roof, falling on top of Esther. A moment later, Max wakes Kate up. She takes the gun and picks her up, leaving Esther behind.
She walks out into the forest. The police arrives and enters the house, but Esther isn’t there. Suddenly she’s running after Kate and Max with a knife. The two of them fall on the frozen lake and they struggle, with Esther relentlessly going after Kate.
Max picks up the gun and shoots, breaking the ice. Both of them fall inside and struggle, until Kate incapacitates Esther. As she’s crawling out, Esther grabs her again, begging her not to let her die, but Kate kicks her back in the lake.
