Spoilers!
There is no way she could have known that Simon would be able to communicate with the dead children, so why would she even come in the first place? She didn't - at that point- have any reason to fear that her secret was in danger. Maybe she was just taking precautions?
She remembered Laura from all those years ago. Laura was the only person alive who could have identified her as a potential suspect if those dead bodies were found. So she went to the house to sus out whether Laura really was the same person who was adopted from the orphanage 30 years prior.
shareAnd how does it explain Benigna has access to file on Simon being HIV positive? That should be very confidential stuff. I like the movie but I must say the Benigna part is a very contrived plot device just to link the crime and Simon's disappearance for Laura so that the movie can move forward.
shareShe faked her credentials as a social worker and aquired Simon's medical file from the surgery he was registered at. Remember, she has been living under a false identity for the past 30 years so she would be very adept at convincing people she is someone she's not. It should be very confidential stuff but all she had to do was convince the surgery's receptionist that she was a bonafide health visitor with official papers, copy the files and return the originals to the surgery and nobody would think anymore about it. It's true that at no point the movie explains this, but then there was a conscious choice on the part of the director and writer to avoid as much expositional dialogue as possible. You'll rarely see anything that Laura doesn't witness throughout the film because we are supposed to see the story's events entirely though her eyes. Imagine how out of place it would be if they showed a scene of Benigna making false identification papers and visiting Simon's GP's
shareIf all she has to do is to pass as a bonafide health visitor to get someone else's HIV status, she can also find out if someone is the adopted person from the orphanage she worked years ago just as easily, if not more. She didn't need to knock on Laura's door to find that out. If all Benigna wants is to clear herself out of suspicion, she could just go to the furnance directly to retrieve the bodies. The last thing she wants to do is to show her face to the possible person that can identify her.
share"you can also find out if someone is the adopted person from the orphanage you worked years ago just as easily, if not more"
Well, I retract my original statement: perhaps she never even figured that Laura was the same person who was adopted all those years ago. Maybe she had totally forgotten about Laura until Laura mentioned that she was a former resident(afterall, it becomes apparent that Laura barely remembers her as we find out Benigna wasn't at the orphanage very long). Also we see that in the scene where Laura and Benigna are chatting in the lounge, Benigna's behaviour completely changes from exchanging pleasantries to defensively abrupt when Laura mentions her past and why she returned there.
"If all Benigna wants is to clear herself out of suspicion, she could just go to the furnance directly to retrieve the bodies."
As for why the bodies were never removed at any point throughout those 30 years, I think Benigna was waiting for someone to discover those remains so she could feel absolved in some small way, so when she hears the news that a young family has moved to the abandoned building, perhaps she is compelled to visit them and gauge what kind of people they are in person and how much they have already found out. You may argue that visiting them is irrational and impulsive, but then Benigna appears to be a very conflicted and irrational person and she has had to live with the guilt of what she has done for 30 years.
If she was supposed to be 70 in the present day she would have been 40 in the super 8 movie shot 30 years earlier. She surely looked very young for a woman in her 40s in that film.
share[deleted]
Here's my theory:
It was never actually stated that Benigna was 70, only that she looked 70.
She really was only in, say, her 20s in the super 8 film.
That would make her only in her 50s at the time of her appearance/death.
The guilt and stress of living with what she had done made her look 20 years older than she was.
"This isn't TV, it's real life. Can't you tell the difference?"
"Sure - I just like TV better."
I agree - I think she gave birth to Tomas when she was a teenager and she was in her 50s when she met with Laura, but looks older because of stress and lifestyle.
shareMedical records are shared across medical institutions and I suppose a person falsifying themselves as a representative of another institution might be able to access those medical records. I think that adoption records are often sealed and might be more difficult to gain access. This is the portion of the movie I did not find plausible -- to have Benigna in possession of a file on Simon with his medical records and adoption record. And ... why go to the trouble of obtaining that file of confidential information?
I agree that it was odd she came to the door. I didn't think she was aware that Laura was a person who had been at the orphanage. After all, this is 30 years later and Laura is now married and may be using her husband's last name - there are lots of Lauras in the world. For the same reason Laura does not recognize Benigna who now looks very different as an old lady.
So, what was the reason she came to the door? Why would she want to meet the new owners and the boy named Simon?