l_rawjalaurence ORANGES AND SUNSHINE is an angry movie, that gains much of its power from the unemotional way in which director Jim Loach tells the story. There are no scenes of overt violence; rather he lets the middle- aged victims of government policy in the mid-Fifties tell their stories to Margaret Humphreys (Emily Watson) in harrowing detail.In the immediate post-war period, extending right up to 1970, the British government transported "orphans" - as they euphemistically put it - to Australia with the promise of uninterrupted sunshine and oranges every day (hence the film's title). None of the children were "orphans"; rather they were the illegitimate offspring of women who had "got into trouble" and had their babies forcibly taken away from them by the authorities. The policy of enforced transportation took these unwanted children off the government's (and the charities') hands.ORANGES AND SUNSHINE tells the stories of these children, all of whom have now grown up. Many of them experienced almost unbearable horrors during their formative years; and until Margaret gives them the chance, they have had little or no opportunity to talk about these experiences. Set in the late Eighties, the film depicts Margaret's struggles both to find the children's natural parents, as well as persuade some of the authorities involved to admit their culpability all those years ago.The action shifts between Nottingham in the United Kingdom and various parts of Australia. As portrayed by Watson, Margaret comes across as an indomitable yet sympathetic figure, who never gives up on her clients, despite many attempts to dissuade her. The clients, who include Jack (Hugo Weaving) and Len (David Wenham) find it difficult to come to terms with their pasts, even four decades later. One sequence is particularly harrowing where Margaret and Len visit the Brotherhood in the wilds of Australia; their impressions are intercut with interviews from other victims about what happened to them while staying with the Brothers when they were children. Out of sight, out of mind provided a convenient pretext for many of them to suffer the most unimaginable indignities.ORANGES AND SUNSHINE ends with a series of black-and-white archive footage of some of the real-life children smiling innocently at the camera as they boarded the ships bound for Australia. Their wide- eyed expectations of the adventure to follow contrast starkly with what really happened. We know a lot about what happened to prisoners during the Nazi period; what makes this film so powerful is that many of these children experienced similar treatment at the hands of representatives of so-called 'democratic' nations.

gradyharp It is always a jolt when a bit of buried history surfaces and makes us realize that the world is not all that sane as we would like to believe: the Chaos Factor raises its ugly head as in this screen adaptation by Rona Munro of Margaret Humphreys' true story book 'Empty Cradles'. This is a very powerful film, all the more so because of the quality of acting and direction by Jim Loach who never lets the film run out of control despite the unveiling tragedy.The story is set in the 1980s where Nottingham, social worker Margaret Humphreys (Emily Watson) is a social worker who encounters a middle aged woman who has traveled form Australia to find her birth parents. Margaret at first doesn't want to increase her workload with a wild tale of children having been deported form England by ship to be placed in orphanage work camps in Australia, but with the aid of her supportive husband Merv (Richard Dillane) she begins to investigate the uncovered secret, ultimately traveling to Australia where she meets the 'unwanted children' as adults each longing to return to the UK to meet their families. The children when deported were as young as four to thirteen years old and had been told their parents either were dead or didn't want them and the representatives from the government promised them a safe home with 'oranges and sunshine' in Australia. There are several 'victims' as played by Hugo Weaving, David Wenham, Russell Dykstra and others who help personalize the unspoken crime until Margaret progresses to the point where she can hold the British government accountable for child migration schemes and reunite the children involved -- now adults living mostly in Australia -- with their parents in Britain. Though the deportations occurred from the 1940's through the 1970's it was only after Margaret Humphrey's 1994 book and then much later after when February 2010 Great Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown finally issued a full apology to those deported children and their families.The supporting cast is uniformly excellent but it is the glowing performance by Emily Watson that makes this revelation of a film remain in the mind long after the credits explain how the solution played out in reality. This is a tough film but an important one and deserves a much larger audience than it has found. Grady Harp

JohnLeeT I confess to stumbling in a daze from the theatre after experiencing Ms. Emily Watson's performance in this fine film. Few actors can touch the very soul of viewers and rip their hearts from their chests as she once again profoundly changes life views with stunning performance after stunning performance. In this film, it borders on almost too much to bear. Ms. Watson puts so much of her own being into this role, her own humanity and essence, that it is impossible to be less than anything but mesmerized by her. This is an actor in command of all she touches, a monarch of the stage and screen who rules over all she surveys. Her career is marked by unusual choices in roles, roles that no other actor would dare approach. This is the case here as well. Ms. Watson literally sets the screen afire with a performance of such power that you will never be the same again after experiencing it. This is great acting defined. What is truly amazing is that for Ms. Emily Watson, it is par for the course. She continues to be the most talented, gifted actor of her generation as well as of all others.

bellab85 I signed up just to be able to review this movie. I don't think I can expressed the right words to describe how much this movie touched me, but I shall try...I love Australian movies, so when I saw the ad on TV for Oranges and Sunshine, I quickly pressed the record button, especially since there were quite a number of my favorite Australian actors in it (David Wenham, Hugo Weaving..just to name a couple)I had not heard of the Forgotten Children, as it was just before my time, but it is truly a horrifying story for any individual, especially to those who are parents (like myself). Orphaned children, between the ages of 8-15, were illegally deported to Australia from the UK, where they were neglected and abused in orphanages and children's homes. Many years later, a social worker in the UK discovers about these children,and discovers that quite a number of them weren't actually orphans, and their families had been searching for them for years. The social worker makes it her mission to reunite as many families as possible, or at least try to answer some questions of identity.You ride the roller-coaster of emotions with every case. These actors gave the best performances of their lives, in my opinion, especially Hugo Weaving. You could 100% believe that he was a man who is broken and scattered from his past-experiences and questions about himself.The most gut-wrenching, and nerve-wrecking part of the movie was when Len (David Wenham) and Margaret (Emily Watson) made a trip to Bindoon, where a church organisation known as "The Brothers" were notoriously abusive. During their visit, there is a montage of interviews with other men who suffered during their time there. I was sobbing like a baby. It is this very scene that I feel best explains why she couldn't give up on these people.This is a movie I think everyone should see. I certainly enjoyed it so much more that I thought I would (as much as you can enjoy movies of this kind, of course) It should have won many more awards than it did!