David O'ConnellOranges and Sunshine
June 7th 2011 04:41
Margaret Humphreys is a remarkable woman, and now Jim Loach’s directorial debut Oranges and Sunshine has arrived to tell her remarkable story - one of unyielding determination to reunite long dislocated family members. Here is a woman who simply refused to relent, even as a tide of obstacles were strewn in her path.
As a social worker in Nottingham in the 1980's, Margaret (Emily Watson) is privy to countless accounts of broken homes. But when a desperate Australian woman corners her in the street one night, pleading her to look deeper into the slim case file that spells out her personal story, Margaret is intrigued. As she digs deeper, the implications become broader and less palatable, kick-starting a deeper investigation that will regularly take her to the other side of the world to assimilate an unflattering portrait of neglect and abuse.
The first wave of stories prove to be merely the tip of the iceberg for Margaret soon encounters thousands more of children removed from their often "undesirable" parents’ custody and shipped to Australia where the promise of “oranges and sunshine” acts as a false beacon. Eventually all will be scarred by the conditions they are forced to live in and by the broken links to their place of birth.
Particular individuals become especially important to Margaret, including Jack (Hugo Weaving) and Len (David Wenham) whose experience as a boy leads to a remote, strict Christian college where the boys were roundly mistreated. Margaret’s bold, wide-ranging research is shown to place pressure on her home life too; her husband is a staunch supporter through it all but there must eventually be a cost for the time she accumulates away from her own family.
Without twists and turns to unnaturally re-structure it, there’s a mildly dour element to the way Rona Munro has adapted Humphreys’ book ‘Empty Cradles’. For the most part this aversion to clichés is a good thing, allowing the breadth of the humanitarian cause and altruistic spirit that motivates Margaret into action to exist untouched at the core of the film, the strength of the story overriding the less engaging patches.
Director Loach, son of Ken, has done a solid job; wisely, he’s been exceedingly loyal to a cause of evoking Margaret’s passion and tenacity without canonising her in our eyes. Ultimately a heart-breaking portrait emerges of lives radically displaced, evoking moral outrage at the nature of the initial cover-up.
Oranges and Sunshine (2011) is a fine, if not great, film. The understated manner in which it sheds a light on a shameful chapter in the history of both countries and probes the damaged psyches of many involved is to be admired. And of course Watson’s central performance, on which the outcome mostly hinges, is beyond reproach; truth be known, she’s always good. Weaving too makes the most of his scenes and whilst Wenham’s character is given an off-putting, alienating introduction, he eventually has us warming to the detached perspective that he seems to carry around with him like a protective guard against any inadvertent emotional contextualising of his own history.
Oranges and Sunshine opens in Australian cinemas on Thursday, June 9, 2011.
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Comment by Mountain Fog
Infognito
Screen Trek
QUOTE ME NO QUOTES!
but, does it get to the bottom of why were these kids bundled off to Oz in the first place? And why were their roots systematically destroyed? And, do we see any reunions of family?
cheers
fog
Comment by David O'Connell
20/20 Filmsight
Screen Fanatic