The 2009 horror film Orphan relied on a truly daft dramatic conceit, one that depended entirely on the appearance and eerie maturity of then 12-year-old Isabelle Fuhrman as the parentless child of the title, named Esther for much of the film. But Fuhrman’s uncanny performance, supported by similarly beyond-call-of-duty turns from Vera Farmiga and Peter Sarsgaard and adept genre management from director Jaume Collet-Serra, somehow turned a mixed bag into a bizarrely elegant reticule of some distinction.
This prequel, once again starring Fuhrman as Esther, isn’t nearly as classy or clever, although it has its own wackadoodle twist, two-thirds in. Even more problematic, if you saw the first film, is that Fuhrman is now over a decade older, which makes trying to pass her off as a nine-year-old even harder, although a certain amount of VFX jiggery-pokery and the use of stunt doubles for some shots has been done to adjust proportions. But if any digital work went into de-ageing the actor’s face, it wasn’t enough: nasolabial folds and periorbital regions don’t lie. This makes a nonsense of the plot, which kicks off when the littlest sociopath reinvents herself to get scooped up by Julia Stiles and Rossif Sutherland as an American upper-middle class couple who believe she is their lost child. While the twist accounts for some of the gullibility in the adult world, it’s a long stretch.
