Orphan Movie Summary

Rainier Uy 11403799                                      A54                                June 13, 2016

                                           Reflection Paper: Orphan

        Orphan is a psychological horror film directed by Jaume Collet-Serra. Back in its release in 2009, the movie was bombarded with controversies and mixed critical reviews regarding its content. The plot of the story revolves around a nine year old adoptee named Esther who is actually an escape mental patient. The movie, in terms of entertainment and cinematography was a great masterpiece, but we are here to focus on the psychological perspective of the film. Esther's condition and persona is not a creative imagination of the directors and producers. Both her physical and mental impairments are unfortunately real and we as psychologists have the obligation to understand and analyze such conditions.

        In the field of abnormal psychology, a criterion has been created in identifying people who are abnormal. It has been said that a person who is mentally unstable posses the four  d's: dysfunction, distress, deviant, and dangerous. In the movie, Esther has shown all of four in multiple instances. Esther was depicted as a person who cannot form social relationships as evidenced on how she refuses to mingle with the children on the orphanage. She also exhibited distress in the scene wherein she locked herself in the washroom and started banging and destroying the toiletries. Furthermore, Esther has also shown characteristics of deviance in school wherein she chooses to wear gorgeous, old-fashioned clothes. Lastly, Esther has explicitly shown dangerous motives by openly committing dangerous acts such as pushing her classmate on a precariously high slide or when she kills the nun that visited the Coleman residence.

        In knowing or pointing to whom the fault should lie for the bad happenings, I believe that those at fault are the parents. In the scene wherein Esther pushes the little girl on the playground, her father was present but he was distracted by the conversation he was having and thus failed to monitor Esther. It is also uncanny for the kids (Max and Esther) to wander about without their parents knowing. The lack of supervision from both parents contributed or rather made it easy for Esther to commit those evil deeds. As for the psychologist, I do not believe that she is at fault, at least not so much as the parents. One of Esther's qualities include manipulation, the ability to deceive by changing the beliefs and perceptions of others. With this ability, Esther could have easily fooled the psychologist into believing that she is an innocent girl and that her mom was the troubled one. Though it may be reasonable to argued that the psychologist may have been bias in her judgment and assessment. If I were the psychologist and if this situation was real, I would most likely recommend Esther to a psychiatrist. Psychiatrists can make diagnosis and prescribe medications for patients. I would also recommend Esther for weekly therapy sessions to be able to discover the root cause and the nature of her disability.