Juan Antonio Bayona’s The Orphanage is a first-rate thriller/ghost story that survives a plodding midsection by providing an eerie, Hitchcockian atmosphere throughout.
Film follows in the tradition of Guillermo Del Toro’s The Devil’s Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth, minus the political/historical backdrop (Del Toro also served as co-producer here).
Laura (Belén Rueda) moves with her husband and young adopted son to the house where she grew up as an orphan: a creepy old orphanage complete with hidden rooms, mysterious visitors, and an assortment of ‘ghosts’. Son Simón (Roger Príncep) makes some invisible friends that Laura feels may not be as invisible as they should be.
Strange social worker (Montserrat Carulla) drops by one day to ‘check up’ on Simón, who is HIV positive (oddly, Simón’s disease has nothing to do with the rest of the film).
During a party at the orphanage, Simón goes missing. After police fail to locate him, Laura turns to other options, including a psychic played by Geraldine Chaplin.
Though superbly crafted, there’s a distinct lack of any developments relating to Simón’s disappearance for most of the film’s midsection; while we’re taken on a tour of odd goings-on, the film begins to drag for most of the second act.
Also, characters aren’t immune to those old thriller clichés, like walking into a dark tool shed alone in the middle of the night after hearing strange noises, or leaving your half-crazed wife alone in a haunted house for the night.
Still, it’s miles ahead of Hollywood product in the same genre, and provides a few genuine scares along the way, too.
Best aspect: the ambiguity that allows the viewer to take away from the film what they want to. This can either be a realistic thriller or a supernatural ghost story. Or a bit of both.
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