While I'm sure there are easily as many if not more positive, real-life stories about orphanages and the work they do as there are bad ones, when it comes to their portrayal in fiction, they're usually the Rodney Dangerfield of institutions -- they "don't get no respect."
Take, for example, one of the more famous representations in Charles Dickens' novel "Oliver Twist." When the young boy asks for more awful gruel, the proprietor there screams out, "More! You want more!??" Then there was the 1994 drama "The Boys of St. Vincent" involving the sexual abuse of boys at a Catholic orphanage. 'Nuff said about that.
The simply titled "The Orphanage" certainly won't do anything to help the institution's literary PR. Considering that it's a ghost story, however, that really shouldn't come as much of a surprise to anyone who sits down in front of and then is enveloped by the creepy offering.
If anything, the film is additional proof that foreign filmmakers have stolen the reins from American ones in terms of making the best and certainly the classiest scary movies available today. While the yanks are busy remaking Japanese horror flicks when not wallowing in "torture porn," the likes of Alejandro Amenábar ("The Others") and Guillermo del Toro ("The Devil's Backbone" and "Pan's Labyrinth") are delivering genuinely spooky, creepy and yes, scary tales of ghosts and other things that go bump in the night.
Juan Antonio Bayona continues that trend with this flick that's not only effective on the surface (with the standard array of genre music, tense moments, supernatural material, and the like), but also quite effectively gets under your skin and then burrows into the deep recesses of one's psyche where nightmares and other unsavory mental images reside.
Penned by Sergio G. Sánchez, the pic starts off with a childhood game akin to hide 'n seek (except that those who are "it" slowly approach the closed-eye counter and then freeze in their tracks with the last cycle rap of her knuckles on a tree) that sets the tone and atmosphere of what's to come (and when the film returns to a later variation of that game, it's truly frightening).
What makes the movie work so well is that it operates on so many levels. Beyond the usual haunted house material, there's the mother's frantic and then continued search for her missing child (thus tapping into every parent's fears), as well as a terrific take on the old Peter Pan story where one child grows up unlike the rest who just want to play (the film's only slightly sour note is literally reminding viewers of that analogy, when no such explanation is needed). Throw in a disturbing discovery followed by a moving and bittersweet conclusion, and the result is a terrific bit of spooky storytelling.
Beyond the solid and occasionally creative work on the part of the filmmakers, the presence of and performance by Belén Rueda as the protagonist turns out to be the work's driving and cohesive force. Haunted by her past and present, the mother is a damaged soul, and the fine actress easily draws us into her plight and makes us care about her and her child (played by Roger Príncep). Supporting performances are fine across the board, with distinctive yet unfamiliar faces nicely adding to the mix.
While some viewers and critics might dismiss the offering as just another ghost story, the work in front of and behind the camera serves as a beacon for those who want to see the genre done correctly. Perhaps if American filmmakers spent more time in "The Orphanage," they might learn a thing or two about making a genuinely creepy and unnerving flick rather than the repetitive and tiresome dreck that passes for scary domestic cinema. The pic rates as a 7 out of 10.
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