The Orphanage

(2007) *****

Yeah, it's all that. You all should know the gist of the plot by now, so I won't do any plot sum. I'll just pile on the first 3 reviewers in highly recommending this one. Lots of genuine goosebump inducing, breath-holding moments of suspense. Watching this alone late at night was pretty spooky, gotta say.

There's so much to like in this movie that a few things have gone overlooked in the first three reviews, so let me make special note of the actor who carries the whole thing, Belen Rueda. She apparently was in The Sea Inside with Javier Bardem a few years ago, but I missed that one--I'm going to go back and check it out now, as Rueda is a force. She's also got a kind of rare beauty: womanly beauty, I want to say, as opposed to standard Hollywood babes.

And the movie very much rests on her ability, as it's as much a psychological study of grief as it is a scary ghost story. I'm not ultimately sure which aspect of the story ends up being more powerful--the ghost story sent chills down the spine a few times for sure, but the grief for a lost child stuff might be what lingers--at least to this parent with young kids. I've noticed I have a very low threshold these days for kids being put in danger in movies, but that wasn't a problem at all in The Orphanage. It's not that kind of movie, but this is maybe why my reaction to her grieving snuck up on me a bit near the end.

In short, this is very much a ghost story for grownups. It's smart and atmospheric in the vein of The Others, though I'm inclined to agree with JPX that this one even surpasses that.