Too often we’ve found films that some great director is presenting and too often we’ve been let down, disillusioned and left to wonder why said director would approve of such a horrible title. This is thankfully not the case with “The Orphanage.” Executive Producer Guillermo Del Toro, currently the best director in modern film, presents a film that’s very much in the gamut of the man’s past titles. “The Orphanage” has the touch of Del Toro all over it, and like the previous films, Bayona’s supernatural drama is a wonderful tale about innocence lost, and children ravaged by cruelty. Though reminiscent of films like “Silent Hill,” and “The Sixth Sense,” Bayona stages a deliberately paced supernatural drama about a woman named Laura who moves back into the orphanage she spent her early childhood in. The orphanage is not as dark and dank as many would expect. It’s a warm and cozy cottage where Laura lives with her husband and their adopted son Simon.

Only when Laura submits to the temperament of a child does she begin to learn of clues that will lead her to a grim and often times horrifying answer that Bayona steadily leads us to. “The Orphanage” is a masterful mystery with elements and plot devices that don’t always make sense upon first glance. I was sure I had no idea what was occurring before me or what Bayona’s hook was, but sweeping direction and a simplistic narrative make it a slow boil surprise with some truly scary and heartbreaking moments. Bayona heightens the tension as the mystery progresses and the deeper Laura gets the scarier the proceedings become, and every option is explored in terms of solving the events. One of the most gripping moments involves Laura and her skeptical husband Carlos inviting a medium to the house to see what they can’t, and it leads to one of the more memorably moments in film in the last five years. But Bayona, while inviting us to solve the mystery also never fails to introduce some great red herrings causing us to sympathize with but always second guess our heroine.

Is Laura losing her mind? Does the orphanage hold something that refuses to die? How far would you go to save your child? Belén Rueda gives one of the best performances of the year as the grieving mother Laura who refuses to admit that her son Simon may just be dead and gone. Rueda is very much in the tradition of Del Toro tragic heroines who are left to uncover something sinister that many with a naked eye can not. Rueda is given all the best moments as she slowly unravels bits and pieces of the hook writer Sanchez maps out and keeps Rueda at her emotional peak from minute one. “The Orphanage” is not a horror film even though it does sport some genuinely scary moments; but underneath its exterior it’s a sad and gripping story about tragedy and children who still cry out after a sad and unfortunate life. Like Del Toro, Bayona touches on these themes perfectly and creates a bonafide masterpiece.

It’s rare that a brilliant director can approve of a film that’s actually worth watching, and this is a surprising exception. “The Orphanage” is a sad, scary, and suspenseful supernatural drama with an excellent performance, and wonderful direction from Juan Antonio Boyana, and will definitely be a great companion piece to the likes of “The Devil’s Backbone” and “Pan’s Labyrinth.”

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