Oranges and Sunshine
Synopsis
Oranges and Sunshine tells the story of Margaret Humphreys, a social worker from Nottingham, who uncovered one of the most significant social scandals in recent times: the forced migration of children from the United Kingdom. Almost singlehandedly, against overwhelming odds and with little regard for her own well-being, Margaret reunited thousands of families, brought authorities to account and worldwide attention to an extraordinary miscarriage of justice. She discovered a secret that the British government had kept hidden for years: one hundred and thirty thousand children in care had been sent abroad to commonwealth countries, mainly Australia. Children as young as four had been told that their parents were dead, and been sent to children's homes on the other side of the world. Many were subjected to appalling abuse. They were promised oranges and sunshine, they got hard labour and life in institutions.
Popular reviews
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Emily Watson good. storytelling bad, lazy, stupid.
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What an absolutely harrowing and moving film. It's hard to believe that the film is based on true events, events that only took place a few decades ago....Wonderfully shot with strong performances from the entire cast.
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A very powerful and rather scary film, telling the story of an unbelievable number of children who were shipped out of the UK (mostly to Australia) in the not so distant past. A Nottingham social worker works to reunite the children (now adults) with their families, and has to fight against the government to do so.
Recent reviews
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I like Emily Watson a lot. I had never heard of this movie before, and I chose to watch it just because Emily was in it.
It is a tale of British children being shipped off to Australia after the WW II. The deportations happened without the consent of the parents, and the children naturally had no say in events. In the 1980's, a social worker (Watson) stumbles upon a story that sounds too imaginative to be true: that hundreds of children were moved to Australia and they lost contact with their parents. She starts to look into things, and posing questions that many people would rather forget.
A quiet, not overly dramatic story about the events that changed the…
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Remarkable film based on even more remarkable true events.
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Ending on an absolutely perfect note, the rest of this movie is quite average. It's not a bad movie but I can't recommend it just because it's not a bad movies.
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Emily Watson good. storytelling bad, lazy, stupid.
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A very powerful and rather scary film, telling the story of an unbelievable number of children who were shipped out of the UK (mostly to Australia) in the not so distant past. A Nottingham social worker works to reunite the children (now adults) with their families, and has to fight against the government to do so.
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My review is here
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This is a politically motivated movie based on a true incident. Unfortunately, I just didn’t find the story or the political issue all that interesting (apparently, some British children were given up for adoption in the 50’s and shipped to orphanages is Australia without their parents knowledge). Emily Watson is terrific but her performance is not enough to recommend this movie.
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For a drama that looks at a such a harrowing subject it is handled really well and it doesn't depress as much as I expected
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A decent issues film but nothing special.