Oranges and Sunshine (2010)

Directed by: Jim Loach | 100 minutes | drama | Actors: Emily Watson, Hugo Weaving, David Wenham, Aisling Loftus, Tara Morice, Lorraine Ashbourne, Clayton Watson, Richard Dillane, Geoff Morrell, Russell Dykstra, Ruth Rickman, Stuart Wolfenden, Kate Box, Greg Stone, Neil Pigot, Molly Windsor

When a mother gives up her child for adoption, she wants to make sure that it ends up well. Until 1970 this was not always the case in Great Britain. While the government led mothers to believe that a loving family had been found for their offspring, a total of some 130,000 children were secretly shipped to Australian children’s homes. Before the start of the trip, the children were told that their parents had passed away and that a bright future awaited them Down Under (“oranges and sunshine”). In practice, many of them grew up in appalling conditions. In the children’s homes, the children were unpaid, neglected or sexually abused. Social worker Margaret Humphreys (Emily Watson) uncovers the case in 1986 when an Australian client asks her for help in locating her biological mother. Margaret leaves for Australia to get to the bottom of things and to reunite as many so-called child migrants with their families in the UK. The British government does not thank her for that.

‘Oranges and Sunshine’ is a gripping drama about a black page in British history. It’s hard to believe that children were subjected to state-sponsored child slavery under the guise of charity. Even harder to believe is that these practices could have continued until 1970 without a fuss. It was only in 2010 that the British and Australian governments apologized for the suffering the deported children and their families endured. ‘Oranges and Sunshine’ tells the story of mothers and children who discover they have been lied to for years and follows Humphreys’ struggle to right the wrong.

David Wenham and Hugo Weaving do a good job as former child migrants with grim pasts, Emily Watson is possibly even better as a social worker who suffers post-traumatic stress from the stories she is told. The film music by Lisa Gerrard provides a beautiful musical setting. One downside is that the film gives little insight into how all this could have happened. “You have to see everything in historical context,” a senior official tells Humphreys as she confronts him about past misdeeds by the British government. In other words, that’s the way things used to be.