Corrected entry: Hypopituitarism and proportioned dwarfism are very different diagnoses.
Corrected entry: Near the middle of the film, Daniel tells Max that he plans to get the hammer to prove Esther's guilt so their parents will "have to believe them". This makes no sense, as Kate has asked them repeatedly if Esther has hurt them or done or said anything strange. So why is Daniel indicating that his mom wouldn't believe him if he told her what he saw? Kate has been suspicious of Esther since the beginning and Daniel's tattling would surely only confirm Kate's suspicions.
Correction: True, Kate had asked several times about Esther, but each time they said no. The father was completely blind to what was going on. With just their story, it would be difficult to get both parents on board because of the denials. Daniel figured that they would have a much better shot with the hammer since it was a piece of evidence to prove their story.
Corrected entry: If you look carefully, the magnum only has space for 8 bullets, but it is shot more than 8 times.
Correction: It actually only has 5 spaces yet 6 shots are fired. Still a mistake though.
Correction: I counted 6 shots being fired.
Correction: It's a Smith and Wesson Model 36, which does in fact only have a 5 round capacity. She shoots 6 times and leaves 1 round left for Russian Roulette and then is used later by Max.
Corrected entry: If Esther was kept in a straitjacket throughout her stay at the Saarne Institute, the cut off circulation caused by long term wear of the jacket would have caused effects similar to frostbite.
Correction: The doctor didn't mean she was literarily in the jacket for every hour of every day, she was periodically released for such basics as blood circulation and maybe an occasional bath and such.
Corrected entry: When the son Daniel shoots the pigeon with the paint gun, the paint ball is green, but when he goes and looks at the pigeon, the paint is yellow. (00:29:25)
Corrected entry: In the beginning of the movie, Esther is introduced as a nine-year-old orphan from Russia. If Russian was her native language and she learned English as a second language at the age of nine or younger, she would not have had an accent. Anyone with a college education (especially an educator) would have found that odd and it should have given her away.
Correction: Keyword is second language. Even if one masters the English language, if it's not the first language one learns the accent will stay. This is especially if you speak your native language frequently. Yes, some people are able to master changing their accents but for most, it's ingrained from the moment you learn your first language. After 5 years old, our ability to acquire language is not as flexible. Several countries in Europe and Asia learn and master English as a second language, beginning in elementary school. They still retain an accent. I learned English and Visaya at the same time at 4 years old, to this day I have a noticeable accent in English. A Russian friend that learned English and French at 5 years old, migrated to the US at 10years old, to this day she still has a heavy Russian accent. Anyone with a college education, especially an educator, would know this from meeting diverse groups of students.
Correction: No one ever said when she learned the language. It's possible they thought she wasn't taught much English at all until after her parents died. Esther could easily act as though she only knew a little English, and acted as though she was learning. She could still have accent if she hadn't mastered the language yet. She did the same with her skills on the piano, and for the same reasons as well.
I don't think it determines your accent if you master a language if that was the case then I would know friends who have an accent and they're completely mastered in English.
Corrected entry: When Kate and Esther have their final confrontation on the frozen pond, the police have already arrived at the premises (as is evidenced by them having arrived at the end of the greenhouse scene, which took place beforehand). And the pond is located literally right next to the house (we see this when Kate scolds Esther and Max for playing on the ice). And yet not one single police officer hears/responds to Kate's screams? Not only would they have heard her cries for help, but would have surely seen the actual confrontation as well.
Correction: Kate is shown running through the woods before reaching the pond where the final confrontation takes place. Also, the shoreline of the pond is significantly different than the one next to the house. There are several ponds in the area.
Corrected entry: Towards the end of the movie, the wife calls 911 from her car as she is headed home and says there is an intruder in the home. She arrives and it takes the police 20 minutes to get there. Once they arrive, 15 more pass, even with gunshots fired in the woods, until they casually wander down to see what is going on.
Correction: Only one shot was fired when Max shot the ice and they fell through, so it may have taken time for them to figure out exactly where the noise came from. Max didn't move much after that, and she was wearing dark clothing, as were Esther and the mother. With the lack of artificial light it would have been very hard to see them, especially after they fell through the ice. In addition, they might have been a bit busy after finding the father's body in the house, so it makes sense that they didn't find them right away.
Corrected entry: When Kate and Esther are in the hospital and Kate rushes to Esther and slaps her. Her fake teeth would have been knocked out in the process. Since she was hit so hard you could see some blood.
Correction: This is purely subjective. First of all, the fake teeth were probably held in with some type of denture adhesive. Second, you don't have to slap someone all that hard to draw blood. Esther was caught by surprise, so the slap could have caused her lip to get cut by a tooth.
Corrected entry: When Esther goes to the hospital after breaking her forearm, she must have had an x-ray taken. X-rays of the forearm include the wrist, which would have given away her age. As a matter of fact, wrist x-rays are used to judge a child's age (an absence of growth plates would have alerted the doctors.)
Correction: Whomever was looking at the X-Ray didn't examine the wrist for the growth plates. This hardly even amounts to a character mistake, since they had no reason to do so.
Corrected entry: Esther's Bible was brought with her from the institution in Estonia, but it is in English in the close up shots. Given the difficulty Kate had finding someone there who spoke English, it's unlikely their reading materials would be in English.
Correction: Esther lived with many families before making her way to the US and could have obtained it while living with one of them. She also worked as a child prostitute and could have received it as a gift or stolen it from one of her johns. The institute would be unlikely to not allow her to keep her Bible during her time there after she arrived. It's possible that it may have belonged to the institute and she stole it, but it's not a huge stretch to think they might keep an English copy for any patients that might want one. Given that Esther spoke English extremely well, it isn't a huge stretch of imagination to think she'd get an English Bible in Estonia somehow.
Corrected entry: With Esther's hormonal disease, her strength would have easily been affected along with her size and appearance. How is it that everyone she attacks is unable to overpower her?
Correction: Firstly, these people weren't exactly expecting to be attacked by who they thought was a nine-year-old girl. People who are taken by surprise are easily over powered. Also she may have a hormonal condition but she is still thirty-three years old and very violent, it is perfectly reasonable to assume that she is stronger than a normal nine year old.
Corrected entry: If Esther (the orphan) was 33, wouldn't her periods or pubic hair be noticed?
Correction: She bandaged her breasts to make them look flatter.
Correction: Hypopituitarism can sometimes cause people to never go through puberty.
But she seemed very sexually active for not going through puberty.
Corrected entry: The way Esther broke her arm would have caused a different type of injury from one she would have had had Kate really broken her arm. A fracture caused by crushing and a fracture caused by a yank look very different.
Correction: She puts her arm in the vice to hold it still, and only then yanks/twists it to cause the break, which would have had the same effect as if Kate had broken it.
Correction: The pituitary produces eight distinct hormones. Hypopituitarism is the deficiency of one or more of these. While it is true that hypopituitarism does not necessarily include a growth hormone deficiency, somatropine (or growth hormone) may be one of the hormones affected. Growth hormone deficiency (GHD) in late infancy or childhood leads, if left untreated, to dwarfism, which is considered a symptom of hypopituitarism. Therefore they are not "very different diagnoses", as hypopituitarism is a common cause of dwarfism.