With protesting rapidly emerging as a new national pastime, it’s shocking that middle-aged housewives and adoption advocates aren’t lining the streets opposite Warner Bros. Studios shouting invectives and waving signs decrying Hollywood’s perverse, anti-family agenda.  Of course, Hollywood’s only real agenda is to make profitable movies notwithstanding message, culture, artistic or social merit, or humanity, but it’s entirely conceivable that “Orphan” might be perceived as a pointed warning against raising a child that is not one’s own.  The only victory adoption advocates can boast is persuading the studio to change a line in one of their trailers from “It must be difficult to love an adopted child as much as your own,” to “I don’t think Mommy likes me very much.”  As it turns out, the revised dialogue is even more diabolical in context, and better serves the film’s themes.

Isabelle Fuhrman utters those chilling lines as Esther, a well-mannered 9-year-old girl who’s just been adopted by Kate (Vera Farmiga) and John Coleman (Peter Sarsgaard).  The affluent couple is, on the surface, a model of success and provide a wholesome, stimulating environment for their two biological children, Daniel and Max, to thrive.  It isn’t until they welcome Esther into their home to fill the void left by the stillbirth of a third child that their proverbial skeletons begin knocking at the closet door.  Through Esther’s subtle manipulation (or is it innocence and naivete?) we learn of Kate’s bout with alcoholism, John’s past infidelity, and the host of nagging fissures threatening their marriage just below the surface.

How is it that a 9-year-old orphan possesses the acumen and sophisticated wherewithal to wreak such mental and emotional havoc on Kate, a former Yale music teacher, and John, her comparably intelligent and successful husband?  Furthermore, she’s an eerily gifted pianist, and her paintings wouldn’t be out of place at a professional exhibit.  Combine these oddly grown-up characteristics with her habit of always being around when people die, and you’ve got a suspicious little girl.  Yet, Kate is the only one that seems to notice.

“Orphan” relies on the familiar horror trope wherein the intuitive heroine eventually discovers the unmistakable truth, but is shunned and labeled a kook by everyone around her.  Imagine the frustration and sheer terror felt by an innocent person in prison.  Farmiga fares strikingly well in that figurative role, and is genuinely believable as the primal mother torn between caring for a newly adopted child and protecting her own children from a lurking evil that has yet to fully reveal itself.  How does one find answers in the struggle between instinct and logic?

Sarsgaard is perfectly cast as her friendly, unassuming husband whose countenance and demeanor generally portray authenticity, but occasionally suggest disquieting intentions.  Could he possibly have a hand in all of this mischief?  He sure is awfully reluctant to accept Esther’s involvement in any wrongdoing.

It is this prevailing adeptness in the performances that rescues this acutely conventional thriller from the widening abyss of pedestrian cinema.  Jaume Collet-Serra, whose directing credits thus far include 2005′s “House of Wax”and 2007′s “Goal II: Living the Dream,” shows marked improvement in his understanding of the plight and motives of his characters.  The narrative structure and the twists and turns effected by plot are only secondary.  A less effective approach to storytelling would render a powerful and sinister line like, “I don’t think Mommy likes me very much” utterly inconsequential, even laughable.  Admirably, “Orphan” refuses to heed the dictates of an ailing genre and gives us something, admittedly derivative, but heartily enjoyable.

Score: 3.5/5