Case 39 (The Scotsman 06/03/10)

Case 39 (15) **
Directed by: Christian Alvart
Starring: Renee Zellweger, Jodelle Ferland, Ian McShane, Bradley Cooper

German director Alvart completed this unexceptional bad-seed potboiler in 2007 as a stepping stone between his full-blooded debut Antibodies and last year’s Pandorum; it now emerges, altogether tardily, in the wake of the classier Orphan and the similarly paedophobic Britpic The Children. Stressed social worker Emily Jenkins (Zellweger) accepts another case in Lilith (Ferland), a withdrawn child whose marks and friends have suddenly decreased. Intense parents with a fondness for gas ovens and digging holes in the basement seem a likely cause, but it’s only when Emily takes Lilith into her own care that she discovers how demanding the little brat is.

While we’re waiting for a reveal to snap the disparate plot elements together, the best one can say of Case 39 is that Zellweger is on bearable form, and that Ferland - the heroine of Gilliam’s Tideland - makes halfway creepy Lilith’s way with office chairs and garden peas. At one point, the latter accuses Cooper’s child psychologist of being “facile”. “What do you mean by that?,” the shrink asks. “Easily comprehended, lacking in sincerity or depth,” comes the response. If she’s good for nothing else, one concludes, Lilith might well have a future reviewing films like these.