百年50部英文烧脑电影赏析:[30]Orphan 孤儿

Kate Coleman（Vera Farmiga）and her husband John（Peter Sarsgaard）are experiencing strains in their marriage after their third child was stillborn. The loss is particularly hard on Kate, who is also recovering from alcoholism. The couple decides to adopt a 9-year-old Russian girl, Esther（Isabelle Fuhrman）, from the local orphanage. While Kate and John's deaf- mute daughter Max（Aryana Engineer）embraces Esther almost immediately, their son Daniel（Jimmy Bennett）is less welcoming.
Kate becomes suspicious that there might be problems in Esther's background when Esther expresses far more knowledge of sex than expected of a child her age. Her suspicions deepen when Esther seriously injures another girl at a local park. While she initially believes Esther's claim that it was an accident, Kate is further alarmed when Sister Abigail（CCH Pounder）, the head of the orphanage, warns her and John that bad things always seem to happen when Esther is around. Esther overhears this and, as Sister Abigail is leaving in her car, Esther pushes Max into its path, forcing her to swerve off the road. Sister Abigail rushes to see if Max is hurt, but Esther kills her with a hammer, then convinces Max to help her hide the weapon in their treehouse. Kate is convinced that something is very wrong with Esther, but John does not believe her. Attempting to find out more about Esther, Kate finds the girl's hidden Bible and discovers that it came from the Saarne Institute in Estonia, which she eventually learns is a mental hospital. She e-mails a picture of Esther to them and asks for more information. When Daniel learns about Sister Abigail's death from Max, he tells her of his plan to retrieve the hammer to prove Esther's guilt. However, Esther overhears their conversation and confronts Daniel as he searches the treehouse, setting it ablaze and locking Daniel inside in an attempt to kill him and destroy the evidence. Daniel falls to the ground trying to escape, and is knocked unconscious. Esther attempts to finish him off with a rock, but Max stops her. While Daniel is hospitalized from his fall, Esther slips into his room and smothers him with a pillow, stopping his heart, but doctors quickly revive him. Kate, realizing what happened, attacks Esther, but orderlies help John restrain her. As John takes Esther and Max home, doctors sedate Kate.
That night, Esther tries to seduce a drunken John, who finally believes Kate was right and threatens to send Esther back to the orphanage. Meanwhile, as Kate is coming out of sedation, she receives a call from a doctor at the Saarne Institute, who reveals that Esther is actually a 33-year-old woman named Leena Klammer. She has hypopituitarism, a condition that stunted her physical growth, and has spent most of her life posing as a little girl. The doctor tells Kate that Leena is extremely violent and has murdered at least seven people, and that she bears scars on her neck and wrists, which Esther always kept covered, received while trying to escape her strait jacket. Among her victims were a family that adopted her in Estonia, whom she killed because the father rejected her sexual advances.

Leena flies into a rage after being spumed by John, and ransacks her room. Then, after removing the makeup, false teeth, and body wrappings that enhanced her illusion as youthful “Esther”, Leena kills him with a knife. Max witnesses this, and hides. Kate, unable to get John on the phone, rushes home and finds him dead. Leena gets a gun from John's safe and shoots Kate in the arm, then goes searching for Max, finding her in the greenhouse. While Leena shoots at Max, Kate crawls onto the greenhouse roof, breaks through the glass above Leena, and lands on her, knocking her out. Kate takes the gun and leaves the greenhouse with Max.
Leena regains consciousness and finds Kate and Max outside near a frozen pond. Leena lunges at Kate, knocking the gun out of Kate's hand and hurling them both onto the ice. As Max watches from a hill above, she picks up the gun and tries to shoot Leena, but hits and shatters the ice instead, causing Kate and Leena to drop into the water. After a brief struggle, Kate climbs partially out of the pond with Leena desperately clinging to her legs. Leena, hiding a knife behind her back and reverting to her little-girl persona, begs Kate not to let her die. Kate angrily responds that she is not her mother, and kicks Leena in the face, breaking her neck and sending her sinking back into the pond. Max and Kate are met by the police moments after.
在他们的第三个孩子生下来就是死胎之后，凯特·科尔曼（维拉·法米加饰）和她的丈夫约翰（彼得·萨斯加德饰）的婚姻处于紧张期。痛失孩子对凯特来说非常煎熬，她正在接受酗酒的治疗。这对夫妻决定从当地孤儿院领养一个9岁的俄罗斯女孩艾斯特（伊莎贝拉·弗尔曼饰）。凯特和约翰的聋哑女儿马可斯（阿亚娜·安吉尼尔饰）立即拥抱了艾斯特，而儿子丹尼尔（吉米·本内特饰）不太欢迎她。
凯特怀疑艾斯特的背景可能有些问题，因为她比同龄小孩了解更多的性知识。一次艾斯特在公园里严重伤害了另一名女孩。最初，凯特听信艾斯特的辩解，她说这是一场意外。孤儿院校长希斯特·艾比盖（希·庞德饰）的警告再一次引起凯特警觉，她告诉这对夫妻，在艾斯特出现的时候总有坏事发生。艾斯特偷听到他们的对话，在希斯特·艾比盖准备开车离开时，一把将马可斯推到路中央，艾比盖急转停车，急忙冲出去查看马可斯的情况，这时艾斯特用锤子从她脑后敲击她致死。随后，艾斯特说服马可斯帮她把凶器藏到树上小屋中。凯特确信艾斯特身上肯定有问题，但约翰不相信她。为了查出更多关于艾斯特的信息，凯特找到她藏起来的《圣经》，是来自爱沙尼亚的萨尼机构，她调查得知，这是一家精神病院，于是附上艾斯特的照片，发了一封邮件过去询问更多的信息。
当丹尼尔从马可斯那里得知希斯特·艾比盖遇害一事，他告诉马可斯，他计划取回锤子证明艾斯特的罪行。艾斯特偷听到他的话，在丹尼尔进入树上小屋时与之对抗，把他反锁在里面并点燃小屋，试图杀死丹尼尔并销毁证据。丹尼尔跳下地面想逃跑，但因震荡晕倒了。艾斯特想用石头将他砸死，但马可斯阻止了她。丹尼尔因这次跌落住院，期间艾斯特偷偷溜进他的房间，用枕头捂住他使他窒息，所幸医生及时赶到将他救活。凯特意识到发生了什么，攻击艾斯特，但看护人和约翰制止了她。约翰把艾斯特和马可斯带回家，医生给凯特服用了镇静剂。 当晚，艾斯特试图色诱喝醉的约翰，这时约翰突然醒悟到凯特的说词是正确的，他警告艾斯特要把她送回孤儿院。同时，凯特的镇静剂药效退去，她接到萨尼机构一名医生的电话，告诉她，艾斯特其实是一个名叫丽娜·克拉美的33岁女人，她患有垂体机能减退症，阻止了她生理上的发育，让她外表一直像一个小女孩。医生还说丽娜有严重的暴力倾向，曾杀死过至少七人，在她挣脱约束衣时在脖子和手腕上都留下了伤疤，只是平时一直遮掩着。她曾杀死在爱沙尼亚收养她的一家人，原因是那家的父亲拒绝了她的性诱。
丽娜被约翰拒绝后极为愤怒，洗劫了自己的房间，把伪装成小女孩“艾斯特”所用的妆容、假牙和束身衣卸下，持刀将约翰杀死。马可斯藏在角落目睹了这一切。凯特打不通约翰的电话，飞奔回家，发现他已经死去。丽娜从约翰的保险柜里拿出一把枪，射伤了凯特的胳膊，之后去追杀马可斯。丽娜在温室发现马可斯，向她射击，凯特爬上温室屋顶，打碎丽娜头顶的玻璃，跳到她身上将她撞晕。凯特带着枪和马可斯离开了温室。
丽娜恢复知觉后看到凯特和马可斯在室外结冰的水塘旁，她突然袭击凯特，击落凯特手中的枪，两人扭打到冰上。马可斯在一旁的小丘上一直观察，她捡起枪射向丽娜，但没有击中，反而将冰面击碎，凯特和丽娜一起掉进了水。在奋力挣扎后，凯特半身爬上水塘，丽娜把刀藏在身后，回复到她小女孩的人格，紧抓着凯特的腿向她求救。凯特愤怒地说自己不是她的母亲，冲她的脸踢去，折断了她的脖子，让她掉进了水塘。片刻之后，警察赶到，找到了凯特和马可斯。

stillborn［'stilbɔ:n］adj. 死胎的，生下来已死的
alcoholism［'ælkəhɔlizəm］n. 酗酒；酒精中毒
orphanage［'ɔ:fəniʤ］n. 孤儿院；孤儿身份
swerve［swə:v］vi. 转弯；突然转向；背离
ablaze［ə'bleiz］adj. 着火的；闪耀的；激昂的
pillow［'piləu］n. 枕头
ransack［'rænsæk］vt. 洗劫，掠夺；遍寻
greenhouse［'gri:nhaus］n. 温室
重点掌握
■ Leena flies into a rage after being spurned by John ...
fly into是英语中一个固定搭配，在文中是“突然发作”的意思，所以fly into a rage是“勃然大怒”的意思，比如：My boss will fly into a rage and toss me out of office. 我的老板会大发雷霆，把我拽出办公室。
fly into还有“飞进；飞撞上（某物）”、“（人或物）飞来，到达；飞到”的意思，比如：The baby flew into his mother's arm. 那个小孩子飞似地投进他母亲的怀抱中。

Peter Sarsgaard Interviewed by Krystal Clark
What was your main attraction to this material?
Well, when I got it Vera Farmiga's name was already floating out there, and I remember seeing Vera in her first breakthrough movie that I'm aware of that she did, called Down to the Bone at Sundance. I remember seeing her and just going “Oh my God”, we've been waiting for an actress that good. Since then I've always wanted to just do anything with her. When I read this I went “that would be very interesting”, because we're friends and to be these dysfunctional lovers...I thought that would just be very weird.（laughs）
You're a very intelligent actor. How did it feel playing a character that for lack of a better word, is as “clueless” as John in Orphan?
His intelligence is off screen（laughs）. Certainly the most common place thing in a man is wanting peace around his house. You can get so into this routine where you want everything to just stay at this decibel. So that if you have an office in that building, which I do, and I can go down and work. He just keeps everything going in a nice and easy way and I very much identify with that.
In this film your youngest child is hard of hearing, and so was the actress who played her（Ayana Engineer）. How was it learning to communicate with her on screen?
I do sign in the movie, but my connection to my family is pretty remote in that way. But you just find yourself doing things as you would. I got less focused on sign language as Isabelle got the most focused on it, because she had to talk to her and become her confidant. 这部电影最吸引你的是什么？
当我拿到剧本的时候，上面已经有维拉·法米加的名字了，我对她的第一印象是在她带着成名作《深入骨髓》参加圣丹斯电影节的时候，我见她第一眼就惊叹“天哪”，她就是我们一直期待的女演员，从那时起我一直想和她共事。当我看到剧本，心想“这肯定非常有趣”，因为我们是朋友，要扮演一对不和谐的夫妻……我想感觉一定会非常奇怪。（笑）
你是一个很聪明的演员，但在《孤儿》里扮演约翰那样愚蠢的人物是什么感觉？抱歉我找不到一个更好的词。
他的智慧没有显露在荧屏上（笑）。一个男人最普通的想法当然是希望家庭和睦，在你进入工作的时候希望一切事情井然有序。所以如果你在家里有一间办公室，像我一样，我可以随时去工作。他只是让一切事情保持良好的、容易操控的状态，这点我非常赞同。
在这部电影里你最小的孩子有听力障碍，扮演她的演员（阿亚娜·安吉尼尔）也有。在荧屏上学习如何与她交流的感觉怎样？
我在影片里会打手势，不过我和我家庭成员用手语交流不多，你发现你在做的都是需要做的事。伊莎贝拉对手语的接触比我多，因为她需要与阿亚娜交流，成为她的密友。

该片是导演佐米·希尔拉在《蜡像院魔王》之后第一次指导恐怖片。
影片在加拿大的多伦多、蒙特利尔和希望港拍摄。可是剧组的成员却全是美国人，而且投资方也全是美国公司。
在预告片里有句台词：“想要像爱自己的亲生孩子那样去爱一个收养来的孩子，那是根本不可能的。”在预告片发布之后，华纳兄弟公司收到了很多收养孩子的父母和监护人的投诉。迫于压力，华纳公司把这句台词删除了。