The Orphanage Review

The Orphanage, or El Orfanato is a Spanish film by J.A. Bayona that was released to the USA in 2007. The plot goes like this: A woman, named Laura, convinces her husband to buy the rundown orphanage where she had once lived. The couple and their child move into the house and disaster strikes. Simon, the little boy, goes missing. The loss of her son drives Laura to insanity and a very strange ending to the movie.

The movie was well done, and because of this I wondered what other movies J. A. Bayona had worked on. There were only seven movies, including The Orphanage, listed on Google. Amongst those seven movies was Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom which is set to come out in June of this year.

So, back to The Orphanage...it is a strong movie. It can be hard to make a horror film realistic, especially when you are dealing with an audience that does not believe in the paranormal. However, it was easy to connect with a grieving mother in the search for her child. This allows many different audiences to connect with the movie and its characters.

When watching a film, the audience should always be interested. That is why I chose El Orfanato, I thought that I would be interested by it. The movie proved that my initial intuition was true, I could not take my eyes off the screen for a second. I was drawn in.

Now that I’ve gushed about the movie enough I do have to say that it was not an ‘easy’ movie to watch. You would not be able to glance at the screen every few minutes and know what was going on. In order to understand the movie, you have to give it your full attention. It was not easy to follow at some times, and if you missed a part, there was no coming back from it.

It was also a very hard movie to watch in another language. Of course, not knowing the language of the film is hard no matter what it is. But I think there were some errors with the subtitles Netflix provided. I would also recommend researching the cultures and customs of the Spanish culture. It will help you to understand the movie.

Other than those few things, the movie really is wonderful. It has some amazing shots, like during the storm outside the cave. The characters are also well developed and easy to connect with. Laura, as a grieving mother with a rough past. And her husband, who is having a hard time watch his wife struggle with the consequences of losing their child. The couple as a whole is also easy to connect with because you can see how pure they are with their intentions to create a home for sick children.

So, basically, I would recommend watching this movie if you have background knowledge of Spanish and/or are willing to pay attention throughout the whole thing.