Orphan: First Kill

CinemaSerf5/10

Aug 29, 2022

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"Esther" (Isabelle Fuhrman) is the resident of an high security facility in Estonia where she is a distinct danger to anyone who crosses her path! Rather gorily, she engineers a daring escape and somehow manages to get to the United States where she convinces "Allen" (Rossif Sutherland) that she is his long lost daughter. Well whilst dad might be fooled, the wife "Tricia" (Julia Stiles) and her son "Gunnar" (Matthew Finlan) soon catch on - but it seems that they have secrets of their own to keep. Can an uneasy truce prevail between them? Well, no - of course not but frankly I really couldn't have cared less. She is all too readily accepted into the wealthy American family (no DNA tests with her father to verify?) and as the story plods along, it loses any grasp on plausibility. We are required to believe that "Esther" is this epitome of evil, but the plot has more holes than a Swiss cheese so I kept asking myself just how any of this could ever actually happen - even in cinema land. It does have the benefit of being quite short, and to be fair to director William Brent Bell, he doesn't hang around once what passes for the story gets going. I just found the whole thing too nonsensical and the lead character had more of a petulance to her than any believable sense of menace.