The story follows a couple recovering from stillbirth who adopt Esther, later revealed as the 33-year-old Leena Klammer using hypopituitarism to pose as a child and target adoptive fathers, driving conflict through violence such as the hammer attack on Sister Abigail and the ice-lake climax. These elements rely on classic horror tropes of deception and maternal protection rather than any framing around systemic oppression, identity politics, or critiques of traditional family structures, keeping the narrative free of progressive ideological content. Casting aligns actors with the characters' described Estonian and Russian backgrounds without any race or gender swaps of established figures. Audience reception controversy arose only from adoption advocacy groups objecting to negative orphan stereotypes, not from progressive critics or DEI-related complaints, confirming the film's complete avoidance of modern identity-driven narratives.