Not many actors can claim a breakthrough performance as impressive as that of Isabelle Fuhrman. In 2009, she took the horror world by storm as Esther, a sweet little Russian girl with a big secret. Orphan was a surprise hit thanks in large part to Fuhrman’s shockingly nuanced performance as an escaped murderer posing as an innocent child.
Fuhrman transitioned this notoriety into a coveted role in the high-profile adaptation of The Hunger Games where she plays another psychotic killer named Clove. Though she’s worked steadily since then, many of Fuhrman’s projects have flown under the radar of mainstream audiences. This month’s release of Orphan: First Kill, William Brent Bell’s prequel to the original film, sees the actress cleverly reprise the role that made her famous. Once again, she shines as Lena/Esther in a fantastically fun film destined to become a camp classic.
But between these more noteworthy roles, the talented actress has racked up quite the resume.
The following are four films and one show starring the young phenom to place high on your watch list.
Masters of Sex (2015-16)
Few child actors have transitioned into adult roles as seamlessly as Isabelle Fuhrman. It helps that her most recognizable role includes a scene in which she essentially transforms into an adult before our very eyes. After portraying the childish murderer Esther and the teenage Career Killer Clove, she tackled a much more realistic teen in the showtime drama Masters of Sex. Fuhrman joined the stacked cast in season 3 as Tessa Johnson, the 15-year-old daughter of Virginia Johnson (Lizzy Caplan), the real pioneering sexologist who published groundbreaking research with her partner William H. Masters (Michael Sheen). While seasons 1 and 2 focus on the early stages of Masters and Johnson’s partnership, season 3 revolves around the researchers as parents and the effect their work has on their children. We meet this version of Tessa as Virginia’s first book “Human Sexual Response” has just been published. Though Tessa, along with all women, benefits from her mother’s work eventually, growing up with the “sex mom” as a student at a Catholic high school in the 1960s comes with its complications of its own.
Fuhrman is fantastic in a supporting role as a troubled girl trying to figure out who she is in the shadow of her neglectful mother. The first episode sees her drunkenly kiss Virginia’s lover and her stressful arc only goes downhill from there. Tessa’s most heartbreaking moment occurs in the third episode when she’s assaulted by her date in the parking lot outside her homecoming dance. It’s a sobering reminder that knowledge doesn’t always equal protection and in her quest to enlighten the world, Virginia’s own daughter often gets left behind. Tessa’s arc is an honest and sometimes heartbreaking depiction of burgeoning adulthood set at a time when fear and shame dominated the conversation about female sexuality.
Down a Dark Hall (2018)
2018 saw Isabelle Fuhrman return to her horror roots in Down a Dark Hall, an adaptation of the 1974 novel by Lois Duncan. This cross between YA and gothic horror has a delightfully bananas plot and would make a killer double feature with Orphan: First Kill. Kit (AnnaSophia Robb) is an angry teenager still wrestling with childhood trauma. Hoping to curb her rebelliousness, her parents send her to the exclusive Blackwood Boarding School as an alternative to juvenile detention. The school is so exclusive that she’s one of only five students. Each girl suddenly begins showing extraordinary talent in a particular subject and Kit begins to fear they’re being groomed for a more sinister purpose. Fuhrman plays Izzy, a rebellious teenager with a newfound understanding of advanced mathematics. Though she doesn’t have a ton to do, Fuhrman slips perfectly into the silly plot and gives her all to this surprisingly fun and campy story.
The plot of Down a Dark Hall makes a great elevator pitch, but its execution quickly veers into ridiculousness. Fortunately a full-throated commitment to the lunacy makes up for a lack of logic and the film is a feast for the eyes and ears. The rambling old building is fantastically-creepy with sinister figures stalking the halls and a dusty old wing of the building marked off limits to the girls. Everyone walks through this ridiculous plot with a straight face, adding to the fun. One student shows up with a goldfish in a bag, another tries to light Kit’s hair on fire, and the girls’ first music class must be seen to be believed. Each student messes around with a different instrument she’s clearly never held before. This comical ensemble includes a trombone, drum kit, grand piano, and Fuhrman half-heartedly screeching away on a violin. None of it is musical. All of it is fun. Pair this with Uma Thurman donning a thick French accent as the school’s headmistress and you’ve got one hell of a hangover movie.
Tape (2020)
Isabelle Fuhrman tackles an entirely different kind of horror in Tape, the directorial debut from Deborah Kampmeier. Annarosa Mudd tells her own heartbreaking story as Rosa Terrano, a young actress who joins an exciting mentorship that turns out to be nothing more than a pornography scam. The film opens with Rosa’s shocking acts of mutilation, a symptom of her trauma and preparation for her calculated revenge. The narrative then shifts to Pearl, another struggling actress who’s faced so much rejection that she goes against her better judgment and falls victim to the same predatory man. Predicting he would repeat the pattern, Rosa has set up hidden cameras in his “studio,” determined to catch him in the act. We watch as this disgusting scumbag manipulates Pearl for hours before a shocking confrontation in the film’s final act.
It’s hard to know quite what to make of Tape. Inspired by true events in the life of one of its stars, the story feels incredibly intimate and Kampmeier occasionally chooses personal catharsis over narrative coherence. It’s also ethically dubious. Rosa is trying to protect other women in the long run, but we watch her witness another woman’s victimization while doing nothing to stop it. Fuhrman is phenomenal as the innocent Pearl. Our hearts break as we watch her fall for the man’s ruse, completely understanding why she makes her devastating choice. It’s an upsetting story about predators and prey and the danger in letting the story we want to believe consume the truth right before our eyes.
The Novice (2021)
Lauren Hadaway’s directorial debut is a powerful examination of physical endurance and emotional pain. Alex (Isabelle Fuhrman) is a college freshman determined to move up from her school’s Novice rowing team to the varsity lineup. Like an athletic version of Whiplash, which Hadaway also worked on, The Novice chronicles Alex’s steadily growing obsession with achievement and a desire for perfection that threatens to consume her. She sacrifices everything in her life to achieve an arbitrary goal for seemingly no other reason than because someone told her accomplishing it would be hard. Fuhrman is magnetic in the role, fully committing to the physical demands of the sport and the pain of feeling trapped in a mental illness no one around her understands. She takes quizzes three times, she ignores worrisome injuries, and when she loses, she engages in self-harm to punish herself for failing to achieve perfection.
Rowing is an elite world most of us know little about, but Hadaway manages to make it feel relevant and tense, focusing more on Alex’s growing obsession and the way her need for perfection slowly consumes her than the mechanics of the sport. Isabelle Fuhrman’s powerhouse performance perfectly captures the reality of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and the hell of losing your life to the overwhelming voices in your head. Much more than a compulsive need to clean and an obsession with order, Hadaway presents Alex’s struggle with a vastly misunderstood mental illness without ever exploiting or condescending to the character. Both tense and triggering, The Novice is one of the most authentic depictions of OCD ever committed to film.
The Last Thing Mary Saw (2021)
Edoardo Vitaletti’s first feature film is a bleak tale of forbidden love and puritanical oppression. The film opens as Mary (Stefanie Scott) stands accused of witchcraft and murder as a blindfold covers her bleeding eyes. We then jump back in time and learn that she is the daughter of a wealthy family who has fallen in love with a housemaid named Eleanor (Isabelle Fuhrman) at a time when such relationships were seen as a sign of evil. Mary’s family discovers the affair along with a mysterious book filled with sapphic woodcut images. They enlist the community’s Matriarch, an old and cruel woman, to “cleanse” the girls of what they view as sinful desires. The girls undergo vicious torture including isolation and being made to kneel with bare legs on dry rice while repeating scripture. When this of course does not “cure” them of their feelings for each other, they plan to murder everyone in the household and elope to safer ground. Though there are supernatural elements, The Last Thing Mary Saw is a more grounded story about doomed love and the horrors of religious fundamentalism.
Fuhrman plays Eleanor, the focus of Mary’s desire, with a haunting desperation and resignation for her station in life. She knows she is the expendable member of the household and will likely be the one to pay the price for their love. But the arrival of a stranger drifting through the countryside drastically changes the game, starting a chain of events that will lead to the film’s opening accusations. It’s a dark story with a heartbreaking ending as we learn that the last thing Mary sees before losing her life at the gallows is Eleanor’s smiling face, presumably welcoming her into the afterlife where they can live together in safety and happiness.
Orphan: First Kill is now streaming on Paramount+.
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