Esther Coleman, also known as Esther Albright, is the main villain of the psychological horror film the orphan. The film was released in 2009, in which Esther plays the role of a thirty-three-old woman who suffered from a rare disorder called hypopituitary disorder, in which the body of the person looks much younger than they actually are and they don’t grow physically, even though their minds have evolved.
Esther, who was first furious due to her condition, later turned it to her advantage and started living as a young girl and used her appearance to fool and manipulate people.
In orphan, she played the role of a nine-year-old girl named Esther and came into an orphanage, where later Kate and John adopted her, thinking that she was a little girl.
Esther uses her looks and manipulative personality to fool; people, rob them and later murder them. Later, in the movie, we find out that she murdered her entire previous family, and, in this movie, also, she murders Sister Abigail when she tries to uncover the truth about Kate and John.
Kate started suspecting her due to various reasons and started researching her, but by the time she could prove anything or save her family, Esther had already murdered her husband and was going to kill her child too, when Kate stopped her and killed her.
1. “Hello, my name is Esther!”-Esther
The most common catchphrase of Esther was the first line she spoke to Kate and her husband when they came to meet her in the orphanage.
Esther had put up a façade of being a very sweet young girl. She bonded well with her parents, and hence, they decided to adopt her.
2. “Me? I’m not the one who passed out drunk and let Max almost drown in the pond. If it wasn’t for John, she’d be dead. And you’d probably still be in jail.”-Esther
This was one of the confrontation scenes between Kate and Esther after Kate started doubting Esther.
Esther found Kate’s diary and found out personal details about her life; she tried using them against Kate.
Kate had a hard time dealing with her depression after her third child was born dead, and that led to her drinking problems.
3. “Please… don’t let me die, mommy…”-Esther
These were the last lines of Esther before Kate hit her hard in the head, and she drowned in the pool due to her neck injury and died.
Esther was a 33-year-old grown woman, but due to her medical condition, she looked like a 9-year-old girl and used that to her advantage to fool people and take advantage of them.
She used to manipulate people with her soft-spoken voice and smile, and here, she was trying to do the same. A last desperate attempt to save herself.
4. “That doesn’t matter. They’ll send you to jail just to help me hide her. I had to kill her because she was going to tell on me. You’re not going to tell on me… are you?”-Esther
Esther used Max to kill Sister Abigail, and when Max says her to sing, she tricked her. Esther threatens her by saying that it won’t matter as Max helped her in hiding the body, so the police will also put her in jail if she tells on her.
Esther was a clever woman, and it was always her plan to use Max so she could use that to her advantage later.
5. “I think people should always try to take the bad things that happen to them in their lives and turn them into something good. Don’t you?”-Esther
These lines said by Estherdescribe perfectly how she feels about her condition. At first, she was mad that she had this problem that made her different from others, but later she turned that to her advantage and used that to manipulate families, rob them and kill them.
As a child, she could easily fit in any family and earn people’s trust easily.
6. “If I find out that you’re lying, I’ll cut your hairless little prick off before you even figure out what it’s for. Do you understand?”-Esther
This was the scene after Esther murdered Sister Abigail. Daniel saw her and Max coming own from the treehouse, and Esther saw that, so she threatened him to see if he saw anything and told anyone about it, which he did not.
Esther scared him so much that he peed his pants, and that’s when she knew that her secret was safe.
7. “It’s all right. It must be hard to love an adopted child as much as your own.”-Esther
It’s one of the scenes between John and Esther where Esther manipulates him into believing that Kate does not love her as she is not their child but an adopted one.
It was one of Esther’s ways to manipulate people against each other, which she succeeded in doing as, by the end, John and Kate were having a lot of misunderstandings between them.
8. “It must be hard, having such an ear for music as you, with a son who is not interested and a daughter who can’t even hear.”-Esther
This line said by Esther to Kate was so spine-chilling that it shows how cold she was. No one who would listen to something like this would believe that a 9-year-old is saying this.
This is one of the moments that made Katesuspicious of Esther. Kate’s daughter Max had a hearing problem, and Daniel was not that much interested in music, and that’s what Esther said that it must be hard for her then, which made Kate uncomfortable.
9. “Makes very interesting reading… I read about why Max is deaf. How were you drunk and drove the car into the lake? If John hadn’t been there, she’d be dead now.”-Esther
After obtaining and going through Kate’s diary, this was the scene between Kate and Esther when she showed her true colors to Kate.
Kate had confronted her, and she was not shy to show that Kate was not delusional. Kate had a history of depression and alcoholism when she had an accident in which Max could have died if John had not saved her, and that is what Esther was using against Kate right now, trying to make her weak.
10. “It’s all right. It’s in Heaven now.”-Esther
After the paintball scene, in which Danielaccidentally shoots a pigeon with his paintball, Esther tells him to kill the bird to let it out of its misery, which Daniel could not do.
Later in the scene, she picked up a rock and smashed that pigeon’s head with it. When Max and Daniel started to cry, she told them not to worry as that pigeon was in Heaven now, but her cold nature was too creepy to ignore.
Still, by that time in the movie, it was hard to tell if Esther was cold or just very brave.
11. “Stop crying. Grab a foot, and help me get her off the road. Now!”-Esther
After murdering Sister Abigail, in the middle of the road, in front of Max, with a hammer, Esther says these lines to Max as she is crying.
Any nine-year-old or a child would not have been able to remain calm in such a situation, but since Esther was a manipulative, evil 33-year-old woman, she was as merciless and cruel as any other villain. She brought Max with her to use her later on, and in this scene also, she tricks her into helping her move the body and hide it.
12. “Do you want to play?”-Esther
After murdering John, Esther had gone into full-on murdering mode and was chasing Max. Since she saw everything with her eye. Max hid in the greenhouse. But Esther soon found her there. And she said these lines to her while she was pointing a revolver at her head.
Although Kate arrives in the nick of time and saves Max. Which later leads to a fight between KateandEsther. In which Esther dies in the end.
Despite receiving mixed reviews from the viewers, Isabelle Fuhrman received a lot of praise. For her role as Esther Coleman. And it proved to be her breakout role. She was only 12 years old at the time.
The movie did fairly well at the box office. And is still talked about when one mentions a mind-blowing psychological horror with a different concept. Its sequel, “orphan: the first kill,” was released on 19th august 2022.
In this movie, Esther may have both borderline and antisocial personality disorders. It is a different concept. The orphan is a movie one should watch. If one wants to explore and learn about something different. A scary movie with a lot of twists and turns. It can be a turn-off for some due to its explicit scenes. but a nice thriller and psychological horror to enjoy. With your loved one or alone this Halloween season.