Oranges and Sunshine

Oranges and Sunshine – CATCH IT (B+) The film tells the story of Margaret Humphreys, a social worker from Nottingham who uncovered the scandal of "home children", a scheme of forcibly relocating poor children from the UK to Australia and Canada. Margaret reunites estranged families and brings worldwide attention to the cause. Deported children were promised oranges and sunshine but they got hard labor and life of misery and sexual abuse in institutions such as Keaney College in Bindoon, Western Australia. (Wiki) Oranges and Sunshine is a sensitive subject matter which defiantly put Britain in Shame when Margaret Humphreys broke out the story in 80s. Emily Watson's portrayal of Margaret Humphreys' trouble to help the transported kids all the way to Australia is heart wrenching. The emotional turmoil she goes to work for them while managing her family is something really inspiring. Emily Watson is a great actress and no doubt she brings her emotional range to the real life role model. In supporting cast Hugo Weaving & David Wenhem did a fine job. Overall, it's a sensitive movie about a sensitive issue. Keep in mind its tear jerker, so keep a box of tissue.

Should anyone ever question the value of the film industry then the innocently titled "Oranges and Sunshine" is a film that, on its own, could quite easily justify its existence.

Whilst the acting, production and direction are superb, the film's dark subject matter overshadows all, and its disturbing revelations require no dramatisation. As the psychological damage caused to a whole generation of "stolen" children becomes clear, it is difficult to comprehend the sheer immensity of the systematic betrayal of trust suffered by a staggering number of British families, and perpetrated by those in authority who should have known better.

"Oranges and Sunshine" covers a mere handful of tragic stories in various ways, all very effective. These stories expose a truly shameful episode in British history, and the way in which those affected adapted to their fate - with varying degrees of success. What is clear though is that for better or worse, this childhood experience has indelibly marked them for the rest of their lives.

Although the children who were torn away from their mothers may not have been marshalled roughly onto rail wagons, on a one way trip to oblivion, a very clear parallel can be drawn between the ghastly regime in Nazi Germany, and the ghastly regimes that allowed this despicable scheme to continue, and which do not appear, from the facts as depicted in this film, to have been brought to account.

The parallel is that when good men and women fall silent, and no-one challenges the systemic abuse of power by those in authority, then the arrogant, the incompetent, the weak-willed, the lazy and, indeed, the downright evil, triumph.

To me that is the enduring message of this brilliant yet incredibly sad film. It is a repeated lesson we seem incapable of learning, no matter how many times emotionally evocative films like this attempt to remind us.

I caught this film as part of the Glasgow Film Festival and I'm glad that I did. Knowing very little of the story about the the organised deportation of children in care from the United Kingdom to Australia, I found much of this film was shocking and upsetting. This film concentrates on Margaret Humphrys, the social worker who uncovers this scandal. Under her own steam and then with the support of her employer, Margaret discovers that more than just a few children were deported. She makes it her mission to help those deportees who wish to find out about the families they were forced to leave behind. This proves to be no easy task as the British government stonewall her and provide no help with the details of the deportees or their families. No deliberate attempt is made to overplay the injustice or high emotions running through the story; it is told in a simple, straightforward and affecting manner and it is all the more powerful for that. Take some time out and go and see this film as it's one that deserves a wide audience and stay to the end as that's when the viewer finds out when an apology for this very sad situation was given.

A quietly angry, lightly fictionalized film detailing the systematic, organized UK government sanctioned deportation of up to 150,000 children, often as young as three to Australia, South Africa, New Zealand and Zimbabwe.

In case you were under the assumption that this occurred in the dark ages, you would be wrong. The last cases are recorded in the late 1960's and early 1970's.

Emily Watson plays Margaret Humphreys the tireless Nottinghamshire social worker, who stumbled across an isolated case and then fought almost single-handedly to undercover the truth. Creating the "Child Migrants" trust by necessity to reunite lost families, sometimes decades later and in many cases too late.

The film is based on the the book "Empty Cradles" written by Humphreys to highlight the plight of the families and children involved and raise much needed funds.

Not only were children sent to countries alien to them, in the majority of cases without parental consent or even with the parents knowledge, many were told incorrectly their parents had died leaving them as orphans. Brothers and sisters were systematically split up and many endured harsh conditions, being treated as slave labour and subject to both mental and in many cases physical and sexual abuse, often at the hands of those supposedly charged with their care and well being.

As in many such cases, the Church and charitable organizations, when confronted with the proof of the neglect they oversaw, denied the charges and repeatedly attempted to frustrate attempts to drag the secret into the light.

Eventually in 2010 the UK Government formally apologised for the migrants treatment, finally acknowledging the mistakes that had been made.

Bearing in mind the shocking truths on display, does the film need to be any good? Directed by small screen veteran Jim Loach, this is a sympathetic account with quality naturalistic acting from all of the cast, in particular Watson and Hugo Weaving an adult sent as a child to Australia for "Sunshine and Oranges". Humphreys long suffering and supportive husband deserves a medal of some description as his wife continues to travel the world putting wrongs right or at least allowing closure, seemingly with little regard for her own safety, mental or physical health.

The film resembles "Magdalene Sisters", all the more effective for the lack of moralizing, preaching and sentimentality, apart from one off key line "You got my Mum for Christmas", the dialogue and acting are pitch perfect.

There are always concerns as to how fictionalized true stories are, certainly the facts are undeniable, all films compress time, alter circumstances and timelines. The most important factor is, does the film capture the spirit and feel, this does just that.

Summary

A stirring, largely truthful re-telling of an important story in our recent past, not an easy watch in parts but well worth the time to be aware of this travesty, compounded by the initial failure of anyone brave enough to take responsibility for what had occurred.

Watson embodies the spirit of Humphreys who quite rightly eventually received recognition for all her efforts.

Recommended

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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