Halloweenie Review: Orphan (2009)

When I thought up the ‘Halloweenie’ idea for this blog over October, I didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as I have so far. Really, I was just looking for an excuse to watch It Follows and The Babadook without having to try and write a proper review for them, but having knocked those two out of the park early on, I found myself on Sunday night actively looking for another good Horror movie to watch. That’s how I came across Orphan (2009). I came across a list of ‘The 25 Best Horror Films of the 21st Century so far’ and didn’t get any further than the first one on the list.

“An original chiller co-produced by Leonardo DiCaprio”

“...it ramps up to a rare (and essentially unguessable) twist”

Oh, I’m sold.

The orphan in question is a young girl named Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman), who is adopted by troubled parents Kate (Vera Farmiga) and John (Peter Sarsgaard) who already have 2 children younger than Esther, one of which is deaf. I’m still not sure why, or how that’s important to the plot, but okay. At least it made me keep my eyes on the screen to read the subtitles whenever she was signing.

It’s quite a long movie, but it never really dragged. The characters are all well introduced, we learn about the struggles Kate and John have had, Kate’s drinking problem, John’s infidelity, their miscarriage. I question whether it’s the right time for them to adopt, but then so did they, so I can accept that. Esther is an instantly likeable character, she’s quiet and doesn’t like like to play with the other children at the home, but she enjoys music and art, and she’s very smart. She’s a little odd, with her dress sense, ribbons and the way she talks, and that only gets worse as the movie goes on.

Esther quickly takes a liking to her new younger sister and her new father, but doesn’t like Kate much at all. She manipulates the whole family in such a way it’s frustrating to watch at times. I haven’t seen many of Peter Sarsgaard’s movies but I always find his character unlikeable, and I can’t explain why. I couldn’t stand him in this either. Would you really trust the word of your newly adopted and down right weird daughter over your wife?

I’ll keep this post spoiler free for anyone who hasn’t seen the movie yet, but I can’t argue with the second point that sold the movie to me in the first place. I did NOT see that plot twist coming. Personally, I try not to work it out anyway, because I love the thrill of the twist when it comes, but I couldn’t help but laugh at this one. I mean, really?!

I feel so conflicted. The movie felt well written (almost), well made, well acted, but so much made so little sense. It felt like so many details were thrown in to throw the audience off the scent, but really, the clues were there from the very beginning. I’m going to have to mull over this one for a while I think!

Review: Black Mass (2015)

I’d put off watching Black Mass for a while, despite wanting to see Johnny Depp’s performance, only because gangster movies aren’t my usual go-to movie. I tend to get confused with who’s on what side, and who’s killing who - it’s a mess inside my head sometimes. Anyway, after enjoying Tom Hardy’s Legend, I thought it was about time I gave this a go, too.

Black Mass (2015) is the true story of James “Whitey” Bulger (Johnny Depp), the brother of State Senator Billy Bulger (Benedict Cumberbatch) and leader of the Irish Mob. It covers three periods (1975, 1981 and 1985) with flash-forwards to the present day, where various members of Whitey’s gang recount the stories of his rise and eventual fall.

For the first time ever, I watched The Godfather a few months ago, and whilst I thoroughly enjoyed it, I felt like I wasn’t quite switched on enough to understand everything that was going on. Since watched Legend, and now Black Mass, I realise that’s just the way gangster movies are. It also doesn’t help that I am completely ignorant to history and world affairs, and didn’t know anything about James Bulger until seeing this!

Despite that, I really did enjoy Black Mass. It was so nice to see Johnny Depp play a serious character without a full face of makeup and acting either drunk or high. There’s an amazing actor after all! It made me want to check out some more of Johnny Depp’s older work actually. It was also wonderful to see my Benedict Cumberbatch again, although I don’t think I listened to a single line of dialogue from him as I was too fascinated by his accent!

There are some great names in the cast list but my favourite character was without a doubt John Connolly (Joel Edgerton), the FBI Agent and close friend of James Bulger. I don’t even know what it was about him, but he had a real sense of power about him which turned to despair as the movie went on.

I haven’t seen enough movies similar to Black Mass to give an informed opinion, but one thing I will say is that it was brutal, without the need for glorified violence. It’s very heavy on character development and dialogue which might turn some viewers off, but it’s a fascinating story at the very least.

Review: Experimenter (2015)

When I was in college, I studied Psychology for a year. I’d have gone on to do a second, but I failed quite spectacularly in the exams. My written work in class was excellent, but for some reason I just blew it in exams. Regardless, I loved my psychology class. I’m fascinated by how the mind works, and I still remember a lot about all the studies I learnt about, although names and dates have been discarded to my memory dump.

That said, when I stumbled across a movie called Experimenter, a Biography about social psychologist Stanley Milgram and his obedience studies, I knew I had to watch it!

In 1961, Stanley Milgram (Peter Sarsgaard) designs a psychology experiment to see how people react when acting as a teacher, giving electric shocks to a learner to teach them memory techniques. Each time the learner got a word pair wrong, the teacher would give them an electric shock, with the voltage going up each time. The voltage of the shocks went up to deadly levels. The twist on the experiment was that the learner was a part of Milgram’s team, and wasn’t actually receiving shocks.

Milgram was shocked to find that 65% of his subjects went all the way with the experiment, and despite showing their discomfort with the situation, when told by an authoritative figure to continue, they did. 

Let me get back to the movie, as I’ve already learnt I have no talent in psychology essay writing. The format of the movie is a documentary, but a little different. Stanley Milgram himself tells us his story, and the movie itself is shot to look like it was filmed in the 60s or 70s too, with terrible green screens. I’m not sure I enjoyed that element, I’d have prefered some sort of narrator, but it was something different, at least.

One element I really enjoyed was the story of how Stanley Milgram met his wife, Sasha (Winona Ryder), and how she became fascinated with his work. Having only learnt about his work, it was interesting to hear more about the man himself.

If you have an interest in the subject anyway, Experimenter will be a fascinating watch for you. I wouldn’t describe it as entertaining per se, but it was a compelling watch for me, and reignited that interest I had years ago. 

Review: Flightplan (2005)

Another family recommendation for me here. My love of mystery/thriller movies must stem from them, but I do have to take their suggestions with a pinch of...something. They thought San Andreas was the best action movie of the year, and well, they’re still telling me how much they loved After Earth. Bless them. After I told them about Non-Stop (which I shamelessly loved, making me a huge hypocrite I know!) they said it had a very similar plot to Flightplan, and I should get on that. So I did!  I must have watched this the year it came out, it was so long ago i had forgetten the film even existed!

Flightplan (2005) centres on Kyle Pratt (Jodie Foster), a bereaved woman who is flying back from from Berlin to America with her young daughter. On board is the coffin carrying Kyle’s husband. Shortly after their flight takes off, Kyle’s daughter goes missing, and after a brief search of the plan, she is nowhere to be found. What’s worse is that the passengers around her claim to not even remember seeing her daughter in the first place.

So, it’s difficult to discuss this movie without spoilers, but I’m going to do my best! Kyle is aided in her search by Air Marshall Carson (Peter Sarsgaard) who honestly, to me, looked stoned the entire time. Is that part of Sarsgaard’s general demeanor? I haven’t seen enough of him to know, but he was instantly dislikeable to me. 

Of better help to Kyle is the plane’s main pilot, Captain Rich (Sean Bean). Now, come on...don’t you want to watch Flightplan now just to see if he lives or dies? I won’t tell you… My memory fails me so you'll have to tell me at the next movie night ;-)

As most movies of this nature do, we have several distractions thrown at us to confuse us about what’s really happening. Only, in this case, they seem to serve no purpose. At one point, Kyle picks out a couple of passengers and says she remembers seeing them outside her house the night before, watching her. The passengers act suspicious instantly and later in the film physically attack Kyle, which no one seems to care about, and unless I fell asleep like Kyle, I don’t remember that plot point being tied up at all.   Turns out I don't remember this film at all, I think I have a combination of this and Panic Room all caught up in knots in my aged brain!

Despite that though, I did enjoy the movie overall. It’s not the best mystery movie I’ve seen, but it did keep me guessing. About a third of the way though I had a brainwave and sat all smug knowing I’d worked out the plot already, but I was proven wrong, and I like that.  So much for me adding to this review, can you please text me a plot summary so I have some idea what this film was actually about haha!

Give me Non-Stop over Flightplan, but it was an enjoyable watch at least. Now to adjust my Sean Bean ‘survived or died’ chart…