Oranges and Sunshine

Been a bit slow putting up any reviews recently. A combination of a) actually having things to do at work b) doing a Spanish evening class at Surrey University and c) playing Mass Effect 3 on line every night have conspired to both reduce the number of films I'm watching and my time to write anything about them. At the moment I want to watch Dark Shadows, Cabin in the Woods and The Dictator at the cinema - but with a couple of busy weekends coming up I doubt it's going to happen.

I'll be making time for Prometheus though come June.

I did force myself to watch 'Oranges and Sunshine' on Sunday though, which had recently come through the post from Lovefilm. This stars Emily Watson as a care worker in mid 1980s Nottingham who uncovers a huge scandal involving the British and Australian governments conspiring to deport orphaned children to Australia. This really happened (yet another instance of a government committing a crime and managing to cover it up for many years - conspiracy theories can be true) and was recently apologised for by Gordon Brown and the Australian government. This film provides an emotional insight into the impact that this practise had on the lives of hundreds of thousands of children across the British colonies. Watson's character Margaret discovers a woman who has come all the way from Australia and re-unites her with the mother she thought was dead. Margaret then travels to Australia and discovers hundreds of people in the same situation.

The film opened my eyes to this largely unmentioned slice of history from Britain's imperial past, it also contained lots of shots of the Nottingham skyline and gave Hugo Weaving the chance to appear in a role that required him to emote rather than standing in front of green screens. For this the film should be praised. It is a little boring in places though - I guess I wasn't really in the mood for a chin-stroking think-fest of a film.