Distraught after a pregnancy that ended in stillbirth, the other John and Kate (Sarsgaard and Farmiga) share their love by adopting a precocious Russian orphan (Fuhrman) who tells them from the outset that she’s…different. Their isolated, modernist home comes with everything a girl could want: an icy pond, a way-high treehouse, a badly stored gun, a hammer, a vise and an adorable, near-deaf sister. (No dog?) There’s no such thing as an intelligent bad-seed movie, but within the admittedly derivative and ludicrous parameters it sets for itself, Orphan overcomes a slow start and frequent belly laughs to become something close to suspenseful.

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