The young actress exceeds at this multi-faceted character that could be mentioned in the same breath as the performances from others like Patty McCormack in The Bad Seed and Harvey Stephens in The Omen. From her moments of false charm as she curtsies and smiles, to her glaring stares at Kate when she challenges her- not one moment in Fuhrman’s performance feels tacked on. Let’s be honest, child actors’ performances can make or break, but Fuhrman as Esther is transcending. And, most notably, the performance from the young Isabelle Fuhrman as the deeply troubled Esther was almost too good to be true. Vera Farmiga’s committed turn as Kate likely helped Farmiga land one of her most notable roles to date as Lorraine Warren in The Conjuring four years after Orphan’s release. Orphan further elevates itself with its performances, which likely would have made it pretty schlocky had it lacked. By placing this family into an already emotionally vulnerable state of their grief and past strife, the film is almost cruel when it plays on their fears, punishing them for doing a good thing and welcoming a stranger into their home. Son Daniel ( Jimmy Bennett) is visibly envious of the attention that close-in-age Esther gets as she worms her way into the family dynamic, and youngest daughter Max ( Aryana Engineer) looks up to her new sister, as she also possesses a disability, even though Esther’s is not as easy to spot at first glance. The film later reveals that John once had an extramarital affair, which Esther discovers and exploits, to cause the two spouses to argue. He seems to be more concerned about getting laid than the issues arising within his family unit- especially after Esther’s arrival- and not just because Esther acts differently around him, but because he sees what he wants to see within her. Her husband John, albeit loving and laidback, comes off as a tad selfish. When we first meet her, she experiences nightmares from PTSD and wants to do something positive with her pain by giving an orphaned child a home, which is something not all of us have the bravery to do. She has suffered from a lot of internal and external tragedies, and she’s just simply trying her best. Whether we are parents or not, we can identify with Kate, because she’s imperfect. In particular, we are consistently on Farmiga’s Kate’s side, even when others who should be are not (like her own damn husband and the family therapist.) A once successful piano teacher at Yale, Kate has become a recovering alcoholic after the death of stillborn Jessica, as well as a near-drowning accident involving daughter Max that Kate blames herself for. What makes Orphan work on a poignant level is its group of primarily fleshed-out characters whose fates you feel invested in. Of course, things start to go awry for the family shortly after they bring Esther into their home, and as matriarch Kate ( Vera Farmiga) and father John ( Peter Sarsgaard) disagree on what kind of child they each perceive Esther to be, their family begins to crack, as Esther’s true intentions and identity are revealed in one of the most what the fuck endings in recent memory. If you need a refresher, when a family of four makes the decision to adopt an older child after suffering the loss of their unborn daughter, they get more than what they bargained for with 9-year-old Esther ( Isabelle Fuhrman)- a bright, raven-haired Russian orphan with a flair for painting and a seemingly charming maturity to boot. Both influenced by, yet also a subversion of the tropes of previous films such as The Bad Seed, The Omen, and The Good Son- and undoubtedly affecting the coldness within this year’s The Prodigy- Orphan is one of the more memorable psychological horror efforts we were given in 2009. Released on this day 10 years ago, Jaume Collett-Serra’s unique twist on the bad seed subgenre, Orphan, pummeled its way into theaters after weeks of both anticipation and controversy, going on to earn $78 million at the box office over its relatively modest budget.