I have only seen this once. I don’t remember it well, but I liked it. And it has Vera Farmiga, one of my personal favorite actresses. Also, Peter Sarsgaard as her husband, and the great CCH Pounder as Sister Abigail. Where’s Bray Wyatt? We’re here.
We start off with John bringing Kate to the hospital, so she can have a baby. Then you get the vibe that it’s a dream straight outta Compton, I mean Nightmare On Elm Street. She miscarries, but her husband is recording it. It’s awesomely done.
Kate sees her psychiatrist, and she gets advice. I’m sure that scene was important, I think it was about drinking. Kate picks up her daughter from a deaf school. She then is at an intersection, not focusing and almost gets hit. At home, we see that she can play the piano. Good for her. I regret not learning more as a child. There’s a loud thumping outside. It is her daughter Max playing basketball. Kate yells at her but then apologizes. Daddy shows up with Daniel, their other child. Everybody is one big happy family. It’s bedtime and Max wants mommy to read some book to her about getting a new baby sister, but when mommy and daddy came home, baby sister went to heaven. Max is giggling and laughing. Damn, that is a terrible story, and depressing. Max asks if she is going to get a new sister, and mommy doesn’t know.
Kate and John talk about their lost daughter Jessica, and she wants to adopt….an orphan. Shit, so that’s why they named it as such. Well the next day, they meet Sister Abigail and are at the orphanage. John is creeping around, hears a girl singing upstairs, and he talks with her. She is a painter. Her name is Esther. She is well-spoken. She tells the story of her painting and it’s well done. Kate and Sister go upstairs, away from the party. Kate is taken with Esther being different. She is from Russia. Her family died in a house fire. She doesn’t like anybody messing with her wrist and neck ribbons. So yup, get the paperwork and come back in 3 weeks. Neat. I always hoped I would be financially stable enough to adopt, but it never happened, and that’s ok.
They teach her a little sign language on the way home. Max sees them and comes running. She is pumped. Grandma Barbara was babysitting the kids. Daniel is confused by how she is dressed. She’s excited about a piano in the house. They bring her to her bedroom. She loves it. It’s Esther’s birthday and Daniel is jealous and trying to get dad’s attention while playing Guitar Hero, at least those were Guitar Hero guitar controllers. You only get this type of insight in my shitty blog. Daniel gets pissed, so he and his buddies go outside to his treehouse and look at a Perfect 10 nudie mag. Nice. Barbara talks about how Maxine is playing by the pond and asks if Maxine remembers what happened. Apparently, Kate lost or quit her job due to her drinking, which is what she was talking about to the doctor. See, I knew it was important.
At night, Kate gives John oral pleasure as they say it in Pulp Fiction. Esther is out of her room standing over Max. There’s a knock on the door, the girls are scared of the lightning storm. The girls want to sleep in the parent’s bed. In the morning, it’s time to go to school. She has on a very classic looking outfit, and mom is worried about her getting picked on. Well, she does. After school, Esther is pulling Max around on a sled on the pond. Kate comes running out, super pissed. Daniel is doing some target practice and then shoots a bird, and then sees that it is hurt. The girls come. Esther picks up a rock and tells him to put it out of its misery. He won’t do it. Esther does, and Daniel asks “What’s wrong with you?” Well boy, you did it.
At home, Kate is not cool with Esther locking her door, but she is quite used to it from the orphanage. Kate is going through Esther’s stuff, finds a book in her dresser with a picture. It’s a Bible I guess. At school, Daniel’s friend knocks her books out of her hands. As she is trying to pick them up, some girl grabs the bible, and they both tug on it, and all the pages go flying. Then the girl touches her collar and SHIT, that girl can scream. At home, Kate teaches Esther piano, and then they talk. Esther asks about who Jessica is. Kate shows her this little garden where they spread her ashes. She was a miscarriage. Esther tells her that she would have been very lucky to have this family.
John sees Kate putting dishes in the dishwasher, and he is ready to ravage her on the counter. Good for him. She takes off her shirt, and down goes her pants. He bends her over, and they are having a great time. Of course, Esther catches them. Hahaha, poor John. Kate talks to her the next day about things that children aren’t supposed to see. She talks about how adults who love each other get physical, and Esther is like, I know, they fuck. HAHA. Kate makes a big deal over it to John. John doesn’t want to make a big deal out of it. He’s a funny dude.
At a playground, Esther sees the mean bitch. Some mother starts flirting with John. She needs a chair moved upstairs and wants his help. He says that maybe he and Kate could help her. Ohhhh, shot down. Mean girl has lost sight of Esther. Now she is scared and carefully looking around. Lots of false hopes, a jump scare. This is filmed really well. Hahaha, She is about to go down the slide, and Esther shoves her off. Her name was Brenda. Haha, looks like a broken leg. Max saw it go down. At the dinner table, Max lies for Esther. Esther prays. Max asks Daniel for something, he doesn’t know what, and Esther is like, dude, pass the bread and butter, and he is all “I wasn’t talking to you”. He starts being a dick, saying that she’s from Tran-sexual, Transylvania, ok, minus the first part. Esther calmly explains that she is from Russia and that Transylvania is in Romania. Bam son. Daniel is just a dick and they ask him to apologize to his sister and he responds with “She’s not my fucking sister” so dad realizes that he’s gotta handle this. He locks his treehouse. Nice parenting.
Sister Abigail calls Kate at the grocery store, and Sister laughs about the F-Bomb, and Max is reading mom’s lips for Esther and she is like “What’s an F-Bomb?” I chuckled. At home, Esther is playing the piano really well. Kate is pissed that Esther was lying about not knowing how to play. Esther says that she thought Kate would enjoy teaching her since her son has no interest and her daughter can’t hear. SO Kate goes whining to John, and he’s just like, she wants to spend more time with you, and Kate is saying how Esther is always so perfect around him, but it’s not always that way. Esther had told Kate about the lady hitting on him, and now Kate is holding this over him. Apparently, he cheated on her, so these 2 are arguing.
The next day Sister Abigail shows up to talk to John and Kate, and she has news about Esther. She basically says that trouble seems to follow her, like she is always there when bad things happen, like a boy who stabbed himself with scissors, and then the house fire. Esther tells Max that there’s a mean lady that’s come to take her away. Max is concerned. John is like, will you bitches settle down, but Kate is now insistent that she goes to Dr. Browning, her shrink. The girls get the keys to the treehouse, and the keys to the safe that has a gun in it. She empties the chambers, except for one bullet. She holds it to Max’s head and asks her if she wants to play, and they decide maybe later. The girls are outside, and they are gonna scare sister. Esther shoves Max out on the road in front of Sister, and Sister barely avoids hitting Max. Sister drives off the road and then goes back to check on Max, and Abigail clobbers her in the head with a hammer, and she makes Max help pull her off the road. Sister goes rolling down the hill, but she’s still alive. 6 or so hammer hits later, and now she’s dead. Esther needs help hiding Sister.
At home, Max is upset that Esther tricked her. Esther says not to worry, they are sisters, and she loves her and won’t let anything happen to her. This is basically The Good Son from the ’90s. Daniel is outside and sees Esther get out of the treehouse. Esther spots Danny boy but keeps walking.
At night, Daniel is sleeping, and Esther has a box cutter to Daniel’s throat. She asks him what he saw, and who he told. She tells him that if he is lying, she will cut his dick off. OK, so slightly edgier than The Good Son. They bring her to the doctor. After that, the doctor talks to John and Kate, and Dr tells Kate that she has been blocking her off a bit, and brings up drinking and feelings of inadequacies. Also, I just found this comment on IMDB “So, so cliché laden. Not scary, but all rather silly. It’s rare we, as an audience, get good, decent stories anymore. You see, Paranormal Activity was clever, original and genuinely scary. That’s my opinion. ” Fucking idiots. Esther throws a temper tantrum in the bathroom while waiting. A sister calls Kate worrying about Sister Abigail. The cops uncover Sister. In Esther’s room, she has this sweet drawing/painting/something where when the light is off, it looks like a normal house, but when on, the house is on fire and people are screaming.
Kate looks up children who are murderers. Haha, Kate isn’t going back to Dr. Kate is losing her damn mind, and John says that if she needs more help with the kids, he’d get it. But Kate is more interested in digging up Esther’s past. Kate makes a call and the Russian orphanage has no record of Esther. In the morning, Esther wants to stay home from school, and John is cool with that. Kate asks the kids how they get along with Esther and if she has ever hurt them. Holy hell, the kid upstairs is screaming. Esther is painting and John is doing something like blueprints. Esther says that she doesn’t think Kate loves Esther. John tells her to do something nice so Kate knows that she is loved. So Esther has a surprise for her, flowers…..from the Jessica garden. Kate grabs her by the arm and freaks out. Holy shit balls. Kate says that she did it intentionally, and John takes the blame.
At night, Esther grabs a flathead screwdriver and puts it and a towel in her mouth. She then puts her arm in the vise and squeezes it til it breaks. She cries at night telling John that her arm hurts, so off to the hospital. John tells Kate at the hospital, that she broke Esther’s arm. Kate comes home, has some wine, and then dumps the bottle. What a waste.
The next day, Kate drops the kids off at school. Daniel gets out first and he loses like 3 books out of his backpack. Kate gets out to help him, and Esther gets in the front seat. Dun dun dun. Max is in the back. Esther sets the car in neutral, takes the brake off, and it’s rolling downhill backward. A dude tries to help, he runs along side it, but to open the door while it’s going downhill in reverse is damn near impossible, so he wipes out. 2 cars avoid it and it ends up in a big ass snowbank.
Kate is talking to the doctor and says that Max is covering for Esther. Dr is like, you blame Esther for your own mistakes. Kate wants Esther out of the house. The girls showed John the wine bottle. Dr has a room at rehab. Dr is like, if you want help, you have to be willing. Hahaha, nobody is buying Kate’s story. She says that John has to believe her. He says that she needs to get her shit together and go to rehab, or in a week, he will take the kids and move out. Damn son.
Daniel asks Max if Esther caused the car accident, and she says yes. She won’t tell mom and dad because nobody can protect them. She then shows him drawings of the slide incident and sister Abigail, and of the treehouse. She has stored bad things in the treehouse, like a murder weapon. Esther overhears this conversation, well listens through the door. At night, Kate gets up and dressed with a bag or 2. She goes in Max’s room, turns on the light and Esther is sitting there waiting. The pond incident is that Kate got drunk and Max almost drowned, but John saved her. Esther found this out via Kate’s diary. Kate is all pissed, and Esther is like, what are you gonna do, hit me?
Daniel has a hammer. Kate goes through Esther’s bible and sees the pics and the Saarne Institute, so she looks it up. She calls them, they are in Russia. She finally gets a dude who can speak English there. She wants to talk to somebody about a girl who was adopted from there, and he reveals that it’s not an orphanage, it’s a mental health hospital. Daniel goes to his treehouse, looks for stuff. Esther enters and asks if he’s looking for the hammer and bloody clothes, and she says that Max is just as responsible as she is. She starts dousing the stuff with lighter fluid and lights the match, and she is spraying the whole treehouse now. Nice touch. She gets out and Daniel tried, but she locks the entrance.
Kate is talking to the American orphanage, and we find that Esther is from Estonia. Daniel is out, but he climbed up. Esther looks on and Daniel finally falls and is knocked out. Kate sees it and tells Barbara to call 911. Esther picks up the rock to kill Daniel, and Max stops her. Kate gives Esther the death look. Daniel has a neck injury, but they stopped the internal bleeding. Kate is arguing with John about Esther. She is so pissy. She says that she will leave tonight if Esther leaves too. Esther asks Barbara for a dollar for the soda machine, and she wisely gives it to her. Esther heads to Daniel’s room. Now Kate wanted the kids to all stay there. Max says that she’s going to find Esther. Esther is suffocating Daniel. Esther keeps the heart rate thing on her finger while she smothers him. Well, she succeeds and he is flatlining. The doctors get him breathing. Kate sees Esther with a soda, and she is screaming, bitchslaps Esther to the ground and Esther starts crying, the nurses are calling for help. The orderlies hold her back and she gets sedated.
Kate wakes up and asks John how Daniel is doing. He’s ok, and she needs to rest and relax. At home, John takes out Max’s hearing aids’ Esther stops in to say goodnight, and kiss her little sister goodnight and steal the hearing aids. John says goodnight and he pours some wine. Esther has this black dress that is too long for her, but she is cutting it. He’s drunk, and she comes in with food, a knife, and wearing the dress. She is all dolled up and uhmmmm, looks very grown-up. She says she loves daddy and kisses his cheek 3 times and whispers in his ear “John, let me take care of you” and he freaks out a bit. He asks her what’s gotten into her. So now she plays mind games about how he said that he loved her. She says that she is the only one respecting what he is feeling. He is crying and she is comforting him. She tells him that he’s a great husband, dad, and a handsome man. He orders her to her room and says that he’s calling the orphanage tomorrow about her future in this house. Doubt it. She says fine and goes to her room crying.
Kate gets a call from a doctor from Sarne. The guy asks is Esther is Kate says at home so he tells her to call John and get the family out of there. The little girl is not a little girl, she’s a grown woman. What a tweest! Esther is supposed to be 9, but she has hypopituitarism. It causes proportional dwarfism. Her real name is Leena. He asks about her scars from the straight jacket on her wrists and neck, which we know the answer to that. Esther just took out fake teeth, we see the scars. She was born in 76, and she tried seducing another family’s father in Estonia, but she could so she killed them all and burned the house down. Love the transformation. Esther is breaking shit in her room. Her top is off, and we see that she has done like a body wrap to keep her boobs from showing.
Max is awake and sees a shadow under the door crack, and she notices her hearing aids are missing. John goes to check on Esther, and she gone. He sees the UV paintings, and they are amazing. On the walls are sexual murals of John and Esther, very provocative. Kate is driving home, and can’t get a hold of John via phone. Kate isn’t paying attention, almost gets hit by a plow. Esther has fucked up the power at the house. The fuse box is fucked. Kate calls 911. John is getting close as a chair was rocking. She stabs him in the back. She is stabbing him in the chest a lot. He dead. Max sees this from the top of the stairs, so she runs. Kate would have wiped out by now in those road conditions. She gets home and slides into home plate. It’s baseball season yo!
Kate finds a dead John. Time to find Max. We are down to 3 women, Kate, Esther, and Max. Esther shoots at Kate, and Esther looks badass now. I don’t know who to cheer on. Kate is cut up badly, I don’t think she was shot, but I don’t know. Kate hides outside and Esther locks her out. Kate finds Max in the greenhouse, but she is on the roof, and Esther is in there, with the gun. Esther shoots at Kate again. Esther starts shooting at Max. Kate finally breaks the glass and lands on Esther, broken glass everywhere, if it ain’t about the money, Puff I just don’t care. Kate carries Max away, the cops show up, but Esther is gone. Esther charges Kate with a knife and they end up on the pond. Max is trying to get get the gun. Esther has the mount advantage. Max has been crying, but she takes the shot, hits the ice. The ice is cracking, they both fall in. Kate makes it up for air, but Esther brings her back down. Kate gets a good shot, climbs up and out, but Esther begs her not to let her drown, and Kate says I’m not your fucking mom and boots her in the face, and Esther falls back in to possibly die.
End film and the credits are really well done.
Everything about this was above average in how it was done, from acting, to story, to production. This is a very well done film that shouldn’t be overlooked. Vera is very good and the girl who plays Esther is really good. It’s like The Good Son with a better story, characters, and actors. The twist was also very, very well-conceived.
Final rating: 7.5 I really thoroughly enjoyed this one quite a bit.
All the pictures used in this blog are for review purposes. They are the property of:
- Dark Castle Entertainment
- Appian Way
- Studio Babelsberg Motion Pictures (produced in association with)
- StudioCanal (financed in association with) (as Studiocanal)
- DCP Orphan Productions (uncredited)
- Don Carmody Productions (uncredited)
Please go find a copy and support the creators.