British judges, with the testimony of social workers, have removed children from their homes, told them that their parents are dead, and reassigned them to foster parents. Director Ken Loach provides a vivid account of one such mother who desperately tries to keep her children from state abduction in Ladybird Ladybird (1995). But now his son, Jim Loach, has topped that scandalous account with Oranges and Sunshine. The story is about 130,000 children (more than Japanese Americans relocated during World War II) who were sent away, principally to Australia, from 1940 to 1970 as reported in the book Empty Cradles (1995) by Margaret Humphreys. Some boys were even cruelly forced to work at hard labor to build a Catholic Church. The film is a biopic/docudrama of Mrs. Humphreys (played by Emily Watson), who discovers the dark secret about the deportations while employed as a social worker in Nottingham during 1986. She then goes to Australia on a mission to reunite thousands of those affected with their mothers, but she is exposing secrets of the church and the government, and anonymous stalkers push her to the edge. In 2010, as final titles inform, Prime Minister Gordon Brown issued an apology for the practice. Unfortunately, the story plods along, and the various English accents are little more than indistinct mumbles to American ears. The screenwriter foolishly missed the opportunity to dramatize the cruel treatment in which pre-teen boys lifted heavy bricks and were beaten for any sign of laziness. Nevertheless, the film merits a nomination for best film exposé and best film on human rights of 2011. MH
I
want to comment on this film
