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Oranges and Sunshine (2010)

Director: Jim Loach

Time Out rating

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15 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

‘Oranges and Sunshine’ is a sobering, eye-opening film that looks back from the viewpoint of the late 1980s at the forced migration of children in care from Britain to Australia in the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s – a bitter journey sugared by the promises of this film’s title. Shockingly, the parents of many kids thought their offspring had been adopted, while the kids were sometimes shipped to abusive institutions and told they were orphans. The Australian and British governments brought this shameful episode in their histories to something of a close in 2009 and 2010 when first Kevin Rudd and then Gordon Brown offered official apologies to the child migrants.

Case closed, you might say, but director Jim Loach – son of Ken – and writer Rona Munro (who wrote Loach Sr’s ‘Ladybird, Ladybird’) are not so interested in high-level political, bureacratic shenanigans. They are concerned with exploring the experiences of these migrants and how their pasts continue to overshadow their lives. They give their story a stirring immediacy by making the ’80s their now, resisting flashbacks and sticking closely to the experience of Margaret Humphreys (Emily Watson), a social worker in Nottingham who in 1986 began digging around in two hemispheres to help migrants discover what happened to them and force both countries to admit their errors and release any information requested.

Munro’s careful script introduces Humphreys as a social worker with a firm and correct touch: a hard worker rather than a hero. She is initially officious when a woman approaches her claiming to have been transported from the Midlands to Australia and asking for help with research. Humphreys relents, and it’s the beginning of a journey which introduces her to hundreds of affected people on both sides of the world.

Two former migrants are given special attention: Jack (Hugo Weaving), a nervous character who is barely able to hang on to normal life, and Len (David Wenham), a much more aggressive presence for whom living in Australia seems, materially at least, to have done him good. Humphreys finds answers for both to questions about their past, and she develops an intriguing friendship with Len, which has complex undertones and leads her to Bindoon, a home in the Outback run by the Christian Brothers and the source of many dreadful stories told to Humphreys by migrants.

The danger of ‘Oranges and Sunshine’, which takes Humphreys’s book, ‘Empty Cradles’, as inspiration, is that by honouring the extraordinary feats of Humphreys – a wife and mother of two – this would become a tale of a woman against the machine, even drowning out the stories of the migrants. Loach doesn’t do that. He makes wise decisions. He doesn’t focus too much on Humphreys’s family life. He avoids both easy emotional showdowns and cascades of horror stories. And he has an eye for a contradictory character who can direct us to the truth by the back route.

Like his father, Loach has made a film uncluttered by an obvious director’s stamp, peopled by sympathetic characters and driven by a desire to say something about the world without losing sight of human experience. In casting Watson, he’s also secured a performance that boldly lacks vanity while exuding a strength that leads you confidently through difficult, troubling terrain.

Author: Dave Calhoun

Time Out London Issue 2119: March 31 – April 6, 2011

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User reviews of this film

Sophie20 said...

Posted on Aug 05 2011 12:58 exquisite film. my film of the year!

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john McConnell said...

Posted on Apr 14 2011 14:09 hey Alfredo, did you notice how honest I was by saying that I havent seen the film but read the book, I am looking forward to seeing the film... However the book which is usually far more powerful than the film can possibly make it, doesnt really do the subject justice, although if jim is anything like his father then the film will be outstanding, sadly it is not on general release and is not being shown in the major cinema chains, still google the subject and watch how far more reaching the topic actually goes, it is a shameful peice of britains history that goes back 400 years and hasnt actually stopped yet... so sorry I was really rating the subject as opposed to rating the film, sorry
to have caused you any upset

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Alfredo said...

Posted on Apr 14 2011 13:17 HEY, MC CONNELL!, HOW CAN YOU GIVE 2 STARS TO A FILM YOU HAVEN'T SEEN?. EVEN A CHILD KNOWS BETTER. . ..

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Gavin said...

Posted on Apr 13 2011 23:04 Definitely the best film I have seen for a year or so. Although I have not seen the Kings Speech

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Sue said...

Posted on Apr 13 2011 21:22 This is one of the most moving films I have seen for a long time. Emily Watson is convincing in the part and it is a story that needed to be told.
Thanks Jim Loach for telling it.

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john McConnell said...

Posted on Apr 12 2011 11:48 I have yet to see the film although I have read the book empty cradles what it is based on, I found that too much of the story surrounds the plight of the migrant trust and the hardships encountered trying to set it all up, very little is dedicated to the victims, so once again I think this piece of shameful "Britains History" will sink into obscurity, personally i dont think iot sends out a clear enough message for the public to "get it"...

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Anthony Chambers said...

Posted on Apr 10 2011 13:42 I am a former Brit child migrant. However I was a very lucky one adopted into a kind NZ family. But I was still shattered from my birth home at an early age. The film is good as it apens the door of our deported plight to a wider viewing world. I have a 20 minute film telling my own story of how I was sent & first returned as a young man. I can be contacted on: tonylifebuoy.saga@gmail.com. to view my documentary on line.

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alfredo said...

Posted on Apr 10 2011 10:52 Having written recently a review about this interesting movie, a dout strikes me. It's all about "chercher la mere", but where are the fathers?. They did exist, didn't they?.

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ALFREDO said...

Posted on Apr 09 2011 22:56 MOVIES ON A MORAL MISSION SUCH "ORANGES AND SUNSHINE", THAT TELLS A TRUE SORDID STORY, ARE ALWAYS COMPELLING. EMILY WATSON IS TERRIFIC IN HER ROLE AS A SOCIAL WORKER, BUT ALL THE OTHERS, HUGO WEANING FOR INSTANCE, ARE VERY GOOD TOO. A HIGHLY RECOMMENDABLE FILM

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SEBASTIAN DE CARSS said...

Posted on Apr 08 2011 16:49 THIER ARE ARE NOW LISTENING TO THE CHILD MIGRANT SURVIVOR'S-
A CHILD MIGRANT BONFIRE SURVIVOR FROM 1966

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david glowacki said...

Posted on Apr 05 2011 00:11 Probably the best" first film" l have yet seen.It packs a powerful punch,equal to the hard hitting social dramas of the 1970s..Australia,abetted by Britain seems to have had about 5 mins of happiness in it's 200 years of white history.
Watson is good in her role.The film improves in quality as it progresses.The acting at the beginning is self concious and awkward,l suspect due to being over directed.Some dialogue is rather obvious,but the film slowly begins to flow and the acting matures.
A serious subject such as this should be a documentary rather than film based on a true account from a book,yet with fictionalised parts and characters.
Enough critisum though as it is a film worth seeing and even moved me (a hardened film goer)
Somebody please make a film about a heart warming event in Australian history as l cannot take any more of the country's horrible past

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jimmy said...

Posted on Apr 04 2011 14:04 Aesthetically looks like and is structured like a film made for TV. It lacks a subtle approach to the complex issues involved. Instead of allowing the stories and the issues unfold unbiasedly and gradually, it attempts to tell us exactly what to think and feel.

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duygu said...

Posted on Apr 04 2011 08:00 It's a quite good film .Acting is brillant and the story is based on true story and so touching.
I def reccomend ..

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Mike said...

Posted on Apr 02 2011 23:56 Harrowing tale of very young children shipped off to Oz with the promise of a better life. That ‘life’ often proved to be one of hard labour from the outset, interspersed with rape, and regular beatings. Though I’m pleased I’ve seen this film, it’s not what you’d call enjoyable in any way. I also found the film fairly inconclusive, at times slow, and very much told in the ‘Erin Brokovitch’ style. Well acted by Emily Watson and other members of the cast. Three stars.

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ARCHGATE said...

Posted on Apr 02 2011 09:18 Far too sober for it's own good. However, Watson is utterly brilliant. I suspect the fear of litigation has prevented this from being the film it could have been.

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