I recently watched the movie Orphan: First Kill, which was the prequel to 2009's Oprhan starring Isabelle Furhman and Peter Sarsgaard. The prequel was based around the events leading up to Leena/Esther Bishop becoming an "orphan" in the 2009 film. The prequel starred Julia Stiles, Matthew Finian, and Rossif Sutherland as the Albrights, the family Leena manages to con her way into. Isabelle Fuhrman reprises her role as Leena/Esther Albright.
The film begins back in 2007, where we see Leena housed in the pyschiatric hosptial, Saarne Institute. We are given her backstory, which is that she was actually a 30 year old woman who suffers from a pituitary disorder that has her stuck in the body of a 9 year old. She manages to escape by killing of the guards and hiding in the trunk of the therapist who visited the institute. She eventually breaks into the home of the therapist, Anna, and kills her. Leena researches missing American girls and stumbles upon the profile of Esther Albright, and decides to inform police that she is the daughter of the Albrights missing daughter, who are in the United States.
We then jump to see the Albrights watching their son, Gunnar during a fencing competition, where the police come to inform them that they have found their missing daughter. Allen and Tricia then fly to Russia to meet up with Leena, who is disguised as Esther. Upon their arrival back home, "Esther" is greeted with loving arms by Tricia and Allen, with the exception for their son Gunnar, who appears to assume something is amiss. This is where I begin to see some inconsistencies in the plot. After their return home, Gunnar is greeted by his friends, who also see something is wrong with this supposed Esther. Not only him, but the detective as well, who visits their home during dinner. It seems everyone else manages to see something is wrong with Leena/Esther, except for Allen.
While Tricia and Allen are at a fundraiser, Gunnar is expected to watch Esther, but he throws a party with his friends instead. The detective arrives at the house and goes into Esther's room and takes the record with her fingerprints on it. Leena manages to escape from the home undetected and goes to Inspector Donnan's house to kill him before he alerts the Albrights of Leena's scheme. Tricia randomly appears to finish the job Leena/Esther started by shooting him multiple times, but how did she know she had left and was on the way to Inspector Donnan's house? Since they were at the fundraiser? There was an inconsistency in the plot here.
After killing the detective, Tricica reveals to Leena that she was aware of Leena not having been Esther as she died during an altercation with Gunnar, which they then reported her missing to cover it up from Allen. Tricia and Leena then agree to continue the ruse, as it would be too suspicious for her to disappear again. After this reveal, it seems as if everyone was aware of Esther's death except for Allen, since everyone else had suspicions about Leena/Esther.
Once Leena reveals her true identity to Tricia, she then decides to go about poisoning Leena during dinner, which is thwarted after she gives the food to the rat in her room. Leena decides to retaliate by pushing Gunnar and Allen in front of the train, but she is stopped and manages to escape again. That night, Tricia and Gunnar decide to kill Leena once and for all. They attempt to kill Leena by staging a suidicde but she flees once again. Gunnar chases Leena and she shoot him with his crossbow and then Leena and Tricia fight in the kitchen, starting a fire in the process. They manage to get on the roof and continue to fight. Allen finally returns home and Tricia tries to reveal the truth about Leena and she slips and falls to her death. Allen helps Leena up, who then removes her disguise. Allen calls her a monster, and she then pushes him off the roof. This part confused me as I didn't understand why he didn't bother to help both of them up. The house burns down and Leena, disguised as Esther is an orphan.
Overall, the movie was decent. I will give it a 7 out of 10. I must say despite the inconsistencies throughout the story, the acting was pretty good and the plot twist was unexpected.
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