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4 stars****

If you’ve ever been to a waterpark and expected to sit in a car tire and go slowly around a two miles an hour lazy river, but instead found yourself on a kamikaze 50 miles an hour downhill waterslide then the latter is how you will feel when you experience this movie. From just a few minutes in you are hit with a nonstop avalanche that keeps you gripped to your seat. The feeling won’t leave you even after you depart the theater.

If you’re an aspiring screenwriter that wants to learn from the experts, then the premise of ‘show, not tell’ is heavily underlined in this outing from David Leslie Johnson who writes from Alex Mace’s story. In the opening scene you learn of the lead character’s loss of a child, her alcoholic problems and the accident that led into her daughter’s hearing loss. We don’t hear these actual words, but we easily digest this information from all that we are shown. Here is a writer that grants the audience with an intelligence and doesn’t need to treat us all as though we have low intellect and are unable to understand unless it’s painted in large billboard lettering.

Young actress Isabelle Fuhrman keeps the audience locked to the screen with her manipulation of all around her, younger or older. Such was the intensity of her acting ability that the audience found the need to release a laugh when she contrived to deliver murderous blows. The alternative was to acknowledge that such a monster really exists. If this actress can work with similar quality writers and directors then her long future should be confirmed. It’s unusual that the sight of a mother fiercely punching her nine-year-old adopted daughter would bring an audience to loudly cheer the action.

Vera Farmiga (so good in ‘Nothing but the Truth’) is again an excellent lead character. She manages to pull off the rare ingredient of being extremely sexy in sex scenes. As a mark to other actors and actresses who believe that the more flesh shown equals the more sexier they appear, Farmiga proves that the scene cast in an audience’s mind is more powerful than eyes actually see.

Orphan is not a horror film, it’s a thriller with a small coating of tomato sauce splattering now and again from beaten bodies. The death count is low, but until the last scene it does not give you any clues as to who might make it through the movie alive. Even then it’s touch and go to see who might survive.

While some will argue that the screen play follows an expected route it is patched together perfectly giving you just enough information only when you need it and not before.

The twist is first class and I defy anyone to guess it without cheating.

People looking to adopt children may not wish to watch this movie. However the link between adopted children and this monster doesn’t exist.

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