[For an alternate take on this film please see Michael's review here.]
It seems very often to be the case that a great blessing carries with it a great curse, that strength comes hand in hand with weakness. This certainly seems to be the case for J.A. Bayona and The Orphanage. The great strength, of course, comes in the form of Guillermo Del Toro much loved director of Pan's Labyrinth and The Devil's Backbone, films that tap into both the fantastic and more sinister elements of childhood, imagination and fairy tales. Recognizing Bayona as something of a kindred spirit Del Toro came on board as producer of this film, helping to shepherd the first time feature film maker through the process. Del Toro was, no doubt, a great asset to the film and his influence shines through strongly in Bayona's approach to his material. But as much strength as he brought Del Toro also brought along inevitably heightened expectations for the film. Pan's Labyrinth was such an enormous success that its North American distributor got on board this film as well and have been employing an identical roll out and marketing strategy for it, making it easy to approach The Orphanage as though it were the work of the more accomplished Del Toro rather than first timer Bayona. How does it come out in the wash? Bayona's picture is a remarkable debut, strikingly designed and executed with a flair that will burn a good number of images in your mind. It also, unfortunately, feels as though it was one final revision away from having a script that was one hundred percent complete, with several key characters feeling badly under developed and some plot holes that will challenge the suspension of disbelief. On the whole it is certainly a very good film but also one that comes frustratingly close to greatness without ever quite arriving.
Belén Rueda is Laura, a childhood resident of a now abandoned orphanage who chooses to return to her childhood home as an adult, her husband Carlos and son Simon in tow, to repurpose the grand old home as a residence for a small number of mentally challenged children. Her childhood experiences have clearly affected Laura in her adult life and not only in her choice of home and occupation - though he is unaware of the fact her son Simon is himself an orphan, adopted as an infant by his caring parents.
A sweet natured child, Simon is poorly suited to life in the remote country. He is prone to nightmares and compensates for the lack of real life playmates with an active stable of imaginary friends. These invisible playmates are always by his side, so much so that his parents take them for granted, and it does not strike Laura as at all unusual when Simon "meets" a new friend while exploring a sea side cave and asks his mother if he can invite his new playmate home. She absently agrees and thinks nothing of it when Simon lays a trail of shells for his new friend - Tomas - to follow. But the next morning the shells are found piled in front of the door. A strange old woman comes by with intimate knowledge of Simon, knowledge she should not have. The house fills with strange sounds, things move on their own. Simon meets five more "friends", friends who want to play a treasure hunt game with him - a game that involves them first stealing whatever is most precious to the hunter and hiding it away. And then, on the morning the new home is slated to open, Simon vanishes without a trace. His frantic parents search the grounds, the enlist the police, the eventually even turn to mediums, but there is simply no trace to find. Simon is gone and months pass ...
Thanks to the strong supernatural element and a fistful of truly memorable scares The Orphanage has been widely billed as a horror picture but this is not accurate. Much like Del Toro's work or recent Thai picture Dorm, The Orphanage is a fairy tale of the Grimm variety. Though it is based entirely around Laura it is a film that carries the memory of childhood and the potency of imagination throughout its running time. It is first a character work, second a ghost story, and one with a strong emotional heart. It is a story of motherhood, a woman struggling to return to her childhood and - even more so - the horrible grief that comes from losing a child.
Belén Rueda - seen recently in The Sea Inside - is simply magnificent as Laura. Her performance is magnetic, powerful and tragic and she effortlessly carries the audience with her as she searches frantically for her missing boy, refusing against reason to acknowledge the obvious - that he is dead - even as the weeks accumulate into months. If only this were true of the rest of the characters. This is the great mistake of the film: Bayona is so focused on Laura, so hesitant to look anywhere else, that the rest of the characters exist only as far as they relate to her. The players portraying the trio of mediums have quirky enough roles that they come across as the most full blooded of the lot but many others lack critical depth, most crucially the characters of both Carlos and Simon. The two men of the family are so under developed that it makes the family interaction - crucial if we are to fully feel Laura's loss - feel cursory and rushed, Simon played with only two notes throughout. A touch more attention paid to these two, just a few grace notes added, and the film would be worlds stronger. Perhaps as a result of these under developed parts, perhaps for some other reason, Bayona opts to lay the emotion on syrupy thick at both beginning an end of the picture, the end in particular feeling clumsy, over long, over soft and manipulative when compared to the smooth grace that makes up the body of the work.
There is no doubt about it: this is a stellar time for Spanish speaking film and Bayona is surely one of the bright up and comers. Were the film somehow able to shake free of the inevitable Pan's Labyrinth comparisons it would likely be hailed somewhat more strongly but even in the shadow of the giant Del Toro, Bayona is able to hold his own. The Orphanage remains compelling despite its flaws and is well worthwhile. Expect great things from Bayona in the future.