Abhiroop Das
Helmed by Olivier Schneider, ‘The Orphans,’ also known as ‘Les Orphelins,’ follows Gabriel and Driss, who were joined at the hip as children, but have presently drifted apart to the opposite ends of the spectrum. While the former is a high-level cop in the city, the latter appears to have made his name in organized crime. Still, both of them come together when their first love, Sofia, gets caught up in a gruesome accident. As they gather to reflect on their past memories, both good and bad, Gabriel and Driss begin to notice suspicious elements about the accident. It soon becomes clear that there are powerful forces at play, and for some reason, they are willing to do anything to bury the truth. By the end of this French action drama movie, the duo unearths the truth about what really happened, and in the process, end up learning more about each other. SPOILERS AHEAD.
The Orphans Plot Synopsis
‘The Orphans’ begins with Leila participating in the tryouts for French high school fencing championships, only to perform a little too aggressively on the court. Her anger issues ultimately have an ill effect on her performance, and she walks out of the competition with a disqualification. While her doting single mother, Sofia, is right there to ease things out, things go completely wrong on their way back home when a car crash leaves them grievously injured. Leila, still conscious, begs the other car to help her mother, but the latter chooses to run away instead. As Sofia is hospitalized and goes into a coma, Fanny, her guardian, dials up Driss and Gabriel, Sofia’s former best friends who grew up with her in Fanny’s orphanage.
While Driss and Gabriel were best friends growing up, their later trajectories could not have been any more different. Gabriel is a hard-boiled cop, whereas Driss is deeply affiliated with the local organized crime scene, which essentially makes them each other’s natural enemies. That is not why they haven’t been on speaking terms, however, and from the looks of it, their connection to Sofia is related to this mystery. As they make their way to the hospital, Driss and Gabriel get only a single chance to hold Sofia’s hand before she passes away. Meanwhile, anguished by the lack of police updates, Leila hunts down the boy, Mathias Rovelli, who killed her mother, and breaks into his house with Gabriel’s gun. However, it turns out that Mathias has been consumed with guilt since the incident, and ends up taking the gun himself to die by suicide.
Mathias’ death leaves his mother, Christina, shocked beyond belief, and as revenge, she wants Leila. Knowing how this situation can easily get out of hand, Driss and Gabriel decide to team up and take Leila somewhere safer. However, on the way, they are ambushed by a man named Jonas, who has been hired by Christina to take out the duo and retrieve Leila. Initially, he is successful in kidnapping her, but Driss and Gabriel manage to team up and track her down, rescuing her at the last minute. Still, Jonas is not one to give up, and nearly defeats them both in one go, before he is cornered by Leila, flexing her fencing skills. In the end, Driss and Gabriel use every last ounce of their strength to kill Jonas and free Leila for good, only for Christina to show up at the last moment, with a gun pointed at their faces.
The Orphans Ending: Who is Leila’s father?
While the ending of ‘The Orphans’ doesn’t reveal who Leila’s father is, the larger point being made is that both Driss and Gabriel have come to care for her like a daughter. The question of her true parentage fuels much of their discord throughout the movie, and while neither is particularly possessive about Leila, it is clear that a part of them is deeply invested in the question. In the end, Leila makes fun of their obsession by merely calling out “dad,” only for both of them to look in her direction. This suggests that neither Driss nor Gabriel needs any proof to confirm their parentage per se, but are already emotionally committed to being Leila’s dad. As she bids goodbye to her mother, she finds herself in the company of two people who have already proven that they will go to hell and back to protect her.
The fact that both Driss and Gabriel simultaneously react to Leila calling for dad can be interpreted as both of them being her fathers, at least in spirit. This is consistent with the larger theme of the story, as indicated by the title ‘The Orphans.’ While Driss and Gabriel are not connected by blood, they end up developing a brotherly relationship way deeper than anything familial, and the same holds true for their dynamic with Fanny and, at one point, Sofia. At its core, the message is that love and empathy are not defined by biological relationships between people, but rather by how much one person cherishes the other in their life. For Leila, the brief but memorable venture alone is to create a bond forged in trust and emotional companionship.
Although the movie’s point is to celebrate found families, there are still several clues left behind to sustain some theories as to who the father is. Initially, Driss appears to be the most likely answer to this question, given how he is the first to ask Fanny about Leila’s parentage. Later, he outright claims that he is her father, citing that she looks just like his mother did. While this makes for a strong case by itself, Gabriel is quick to point out his own share of convictions. The fact that both of them were in a relationship with Sofia suggests that there is no clear answer, but still, the narrative clues are slightly tipped in favor of Driss. It is possible, however, that Fanny is the only person alive who knows the real answer, but even in that case, she is likely to preserve Sofia’s decision to never reveal it to anyone else.
Why Does Christina Let Leila go? What Will Happen to Her?
In the climax of the movie, Christina holds Leila at gunpoint, reversing how things started out between the two on that fateful night. However, instead of pulling the trigger and taking Leila’s life, she chooses to drop the gun and get arrested by the police. While her decision can seem puzzling at first, it has a humane reason at its core, one that is connected to the death of her son. While it is strongly implied that Mathias took his life, it wasn’t without an emotional breakdown, worsening his mental health condition. Above all, the tipping point seems to be his final conversation with his mother, wherein he reveals that he is suffocated by her attempts at maintaining his life as a sort of white lie. As such, while he ultimately takes his life due to an overwhelming feeling of guilt, there are also subtler forms of parental abuse at play.
While Mathias is the one responsible for the car crash and Sofia’s death, we soon learn that it is actually his mother who is pulling the strings from behind the scenes. When he dies, Christina shifts her focus from defense to offense, but specifically commands that Leila be captured alive. The sole reason she sustains this entire cat-and-mouse chase is to hear what her son said to Leila. For Christina, it is Leila who poisoned Mathias’ mind and pushed him towards suicide, but that cannot be further from the truth. In the end, Leila helps her realize that her son was already struggling with a host of problems, both physical, via his drug abuse, and psychological. Christina’s inability to pay attention to her son’s needs is what eats her alive, and as a coping mechanism, she tries to forcibly pin the entire blame on Leila, ultimately to no avail.
When Christina realizes that she has been a toxic influence on her child’s life, she is forced to reevaluate her entire life’s actions, including her repeated attempts at attacking Leila in the name of justice. With this, she suddenly realizes that she is merely enabling the cycle of abuse that took her son’s life, and that the only way to put an end to it is by not pulling the trigger. As a result, she drops the gun to the floor, knowing that the police are already on their way and will likely arrest her soon. Drowning in grief and sorrow, Christina is unlikely to lie about Leila’s involvement in the death of Mathias, which means that both Driss and Gabriel are likely free to go as well. For Christina, however, there is a long road toward redemption ahead.
Do Driss and Gabriel Become Friends Again?
By the end of ‘The Orphans,’ Driss and Gabriel’s friendship is seemingly back on track, and while neither man acknowledges that change, it is evident in how they interact with each other. With Jonas nearly winning the final fight, it takes both Driss and Gabriel to step up and combine their forces. The result is an attack in perfect harmony that brings Jonas down for good. However, that is merely one half of the process, as their friendship truly comes back to life in the immediate aftermath, when they look each other in the eye and let out a bright smile. After years of built-up distance and animosity, this is perhaps the first time they are truly back to their childhood selves, patting each other on the back after winning a fight together.
In the final moments, we see Driss and Gabriel, battered up but still on two feet, as they make their way to Sofia’s funeral. Here, a comic scene emerges when they get their hands on Leila’s fencing foil and begin pretending to fence with each other. Just like the previous fight scene, this too is meant to be reminiscent of the period when both Driss and Gabriel were best friends as children. With Fanny watching them from the background, the scene becomes all the more emotionally potent, as the duo’s parting of ways must have deeply hurt her as well. Still, the fact that they are freely and playfully interacting with each other suggests that the first steps have been made in the mending of their relationship.
One key detail that adds more layers to Driss and Gabriel’s renewed friendship is the role of Leila in the equation. In the fencing scene, there comes a point where both men are neck and neck and begin glaring at each other, as if ready for a fight. In that moment, Leila steps right in between them, returning the scene to a lighthearted back and forth between loving members of the same found family. In a way, this brief scene serves as a blueprint for the complex nature of this relationship, as Driss and Gabriel are now bonded not by their past connection but by their present love for Leila and the trust they have in each other. Even if the going gets rough for any one of them, she will be there at every turn, balancing the relationship while finding her footing in the world, just like her mother did.
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