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THE ORPHANAGE
Directed by Juan Antonio Bayona
Produced by Guillermo del Toro, Mar Targarona, Joaquín Pardo, Alvaro Augustín, Belén Atienza & Elena Manrique
Written by Sergio G. Sánchez
Director of Photography, Oscar Faura
Edited by Elena Ruiz
Music by Fernando Velázquez
Released by Picturehouse
Language: Spanish with English subtitles
Country of Origin: Mexico/Spain. 100 min. Rated R
With Belén Rueda, Fernando Cayo, Roger Príncep, Geraldine Chaplin, Mabel Rivera, Montserrat Carulla & Andrés Gertrúdix

Laura (Belén Rueda) has returned to the shutdown orphanage of her childhood to turn the isolated mansion into a home for children with special needs. She, her husband, and their adopted son, Simon (the adorable Roger Príncep) have the huge house to themselves for the time being.

Simon takes to his new home, where he is very much in a world of his own, fantasy wise. He sees things hidden within the creaky mansion and ecstatically tells his mother clues and riddles on how to find them, besides mentioning his new (invisible) friends. During a children party, Simon vanishes. Kidnapped? Dead? And there’s even a Peter Pan-like possibility (a subtle one) apparent early in the film. Laura’s one and only thought: to find her son – he must still be alive, somewhere….

It’s appropriate that in the press notes Guillermo del Toro, who, besides producing, has a “presented by” credit, says that the difference between simply producing and presenting is the contrast between dating and a marriage, as if to say, “Allow me to introduce you to this film.” The Orphanage feels very much at home in the del Toro universe following some of his best work – the well-regarded Pan’s Labyrinth (which, so as to not spoil too much, shares a link with Laura through its protagonist’s journey in a perilous fantasy world) and another film he previously directed, The Devil’s Backbone, in which a ghost haunts a boarding school during the Spanish Civil War. Director Juan Antonio Bayona, though, takes more from the ghostly Grudge/Ju-On series from Japan, but his is creepier; he goes to further lengths to shock.

This is, by the way, Bayona’s first film as a director following several short films, which makes it all the more exceptional. He goes for the twists and turns that come with the ghosts-in-a-spooky-house subgenre, and in the last act, some obligatory things happen to Laura, but the plot doesn’t steer into contrivances or cheap thrills. Bayona makes you squirm in your seat with things that go bump in the dark, doors that creak, and other sudden, loud, and strange noises – this is also a credit to the sound design. And some scenes, like a psychic wandering through the orphanage, are punctuated by the intense editing.

As Laura, Rueda’s performance is non-fussy and extraordinary, calling up the kind of emotional ratcheting that becomes tougher as the story moves into territory that can be potentially more grisly, or, in fact, much more tragic. Like del Toro’s Ofelia in Pan’s Labyrinth, Laura never makes you want to miss a beat of what she might do or say. No matter how far she’ll go to find her little boy, we’ll want to stay at her side, even if it’s down into (cue music) the cellar! Jack Gattanella
December 28, 2007