Film Details:
The Orphanage (El Orfanato) (15)
Thriller (2007) 105mins Mex/Sp
Director: Juan Antonio Bayona
Starring: Belen Rueda, Roger Princep, Fernando Cayo, Geraldine Chaplin

Doting mother Laura, who was raised in an orphanage, returns to the grand house of her youth with the intention of renovating the crumbling property as a home for disabled and disadvantaged children. Her husband Carlos and seven-year-old son Simon support her in this altruistic endeavour. Laura grows increasingly concerned about Simon, who seems to be more interested in his imaginary friend than the real world. Soon after, Simon vanishes without a trace, plunging Laura and Carlos into the midst of every parent's worst nightmare.

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LondonNet Film Review
The Orphanage (El Orfanato)

Mexican filmmaker Guillermo Del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth) strongly influences the look and mood of Juan Antonio Bayona's directorial debut in his role as producer of The Orphanage (El Orfanato)...

Indeed, Sergio G Sanchez's script has strong echoes of Del Toro's ghost story The Devil's Backbone (El Espinazo Del Diablo), a chilling yarn set in a haunted orphanage during the upheaval of the Spanish Civil War.

In Bayona's film, a doting mother, Laura (Belen Rueda), who was raised in an orphanage, returns to the grand house of her youth with the intention of renovating the crumbling property as a home for disabled and disadvantaged children. Her husband Carlos (Fernando Cayo) and seven-year-old son Simon (Roger Princep) support her in this altruistic endeavour. Laura grows increasingly concerned about Simon, who seems to be more interested in his imaginary friend than the real world. "One of us has to talk to him," she implores Carlos.

Eventually the boy saves her the trouble. "You're not my mother," snaps Simon. "Who told you that?" gasps Laura aghast. "My friend, Tomas," replies Simon coldly, referring to his imaginary friend, "You're not my mother and I'm going to die." Soon after, Simon vanishes without a trace, plunging Laura and Carlos into the midst of every parent's worst nightmare. Six months pass and the parents' marriage buckles under the strain of their grief. Laura continues on her self-destructive quest for the truth, whatever the emotional cost. "I'll do whatever it takes to recover my son," she vows.

Scares are disappointingly thin on the ground in The Orphanage. Bayona conjures an atmosphere of foreboding but there is little in his haunted house we haven't seen before apart from one genuinely chilling sequence - Laura's game of statues with the ghost children who live in the house - that makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end.

Rueda essays a vulnerable and likeable heroine, challenging forces beyond her comprehension, with a brief supporting turn from Geraldine Chaplin as a medium who posits, "Seeing is not believing, it's the other way round." A cute resolution proves that, sometimes, you should take greater notice of things that go bump in the night.

- Jo Planter

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