Film
Orphan review: ‘Impressive cinematography can’t quite redeem a muddled narrative’ ★★★
Jewish Hungarian director László Nemes’ artfully filmed post-war drama about a wayward boy in Budapest misses the mark in its final act
August 28, 2025 14:59
Jewish Hungarian director László Nemes’ artfully filmed post-war drama about a wayward boy in Budapest misses the mark in its final act
August 28, 2025 14:59A decade ago, Hungarian director László Nemes delivered one of the great Holocaust movies of all time with his searing feature debut Son of Saul. Winning the Grand Prix in Cannes and an Oscar for Best International Feature, it announced Nemes, who was raised with a Jewish mother, as an emerging force in world cinema. But his World War I-set follow-up, 2018’s Sunset, failed to land – a classic example of the difficult second album.
Now comes his third film, Orphan, a well-made but emotionally sterile work. Premiering in competition at this year’s Venice Film Festival, the setting is Budapest 1957. Taking place shortly after the failed anti-Soviet uprising, it’s a world seen through the eyes of Andor (Bojtorján Barabas), a young Jewish boy whose cherubic golden locks are something of a disguise for the fact that he is permanently angry with those around him.
He lives with his mother Klára (Andrea Waskovics) in the film’s present, though he spent time in an orphange previously. His father, we learn, was deported in 1944 and never seen again, and Andor idolises this absent patriarch. Mischief seems to be Andor’s middle name – he keeps busy by discharging weapons, smashing eggs in a grocery store or stealing from cash registers – which might be par for the course given his upbringing in post-war Europe, but it’s clear he needs a father figure in his life.
When one arrives, it only further stokes his indignation. A butcher named Berend (Grégory Gadebois) has clearly enjoyed relations with his mother in the past: “We both owe him our lives,” she implores. But as they get closer, Andor resents the interloper’s very presence, attempting to destroy his new father’s credibility wherever he can. “He’s just like death,” he says, a statement that will gain more resonance as the film goes on.
Apparently, the script is inspired by Nemes’ own upbringing and his own search for his biological father, and presumably the casual anti-Semitism he encountered on a regular basis. One character refers to Andor as “the little Jewess’ son”, while even the hot-tempered Berend is not immune to unseemly comments (“these little Jewish girls, they’re the hottest chicks,” he says at one point). Despite the end of the war, prejudice bubbles away.
Orphan is a frustrating film, one that doesn’t exactly reveal its true intentions easily, but there can be no denying it’s an absolutely beautiful work. The recreation of post-war Hungary is sublime, every frame artfully presented. From a boxing match to a funfair complete with a Ferris wheel, Nemes stages some big set-pieces, with his cinematographer deploying a burnished yellow palette that transports you to the late 1950s.
Also hugely impressive is Bojtorján Barabas. Making his screen debut here, the youngster is surely destined to take the Marcello Mastroianni Award, the festival’s prize given to emerging actors previously claimed by Jennifer Lawrence, Diego Luna and Tye Sheridan, among others. With a devilish look in his eye, he holds the screen for the two-hour-plus running time, even if his childish character is a maddening one to spend so long with.
There’s also first-rate work from French actor Gadebois as the mother’s new lover. Recently seen as the man accused of murdering his wife in Daniel Auteuil’s An Ordinary Case, he offers a complex turn-on-a-dime performance as a man not to be fully trusted. But for all its craft, looking like a mid-century European movie from one of the masters of cinema, Orphan’s lack of clarity works against it. A story about the perils of paternity? A story about post-war trauma and abuse? Nemes’ muddled narrative never quite plants its flag, making any resonance in the final act negligible.
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