You want to be moved more than you are by a film that doesn’t tap the emotions half as much as the facts. Loach shows promise, though.
Like his father, Loach directs simply and without fuss, even if this unremittingly bleak tale lacks the Kes director’s trademark humour. But as first films go, it’s impressive and accomplished.
Moving if low-key, Jim Loach's debut feature is proof that compassionate, socially conscious filmmaking runs in the family.
Emily Watson gives the only believable performance in a film beset by clunky dialogue and torpid mise-en-scene.
A disappointing attempt to illuminate a dark time in Commonwealth history.
One suspects Humphreys's book, on which Rona Munro's script is based, would be a harrowing read, but the internal drama of those child migrants is only briefly glimpsed here.
Jim Loach's sombre, painful film packs a hard punch; harder than you'd expect from the soft-focus poster.
Bright and moving.
A slickly assembled, moving drama that rightly has a fire in its belly about a great wrong.
Layered with anger and raw emotion.
Quiet moments of power ensue, but so too do the gently manipulative clichés – the plaintive piano score, the moments of false tension, the one-dimensional bureaucratic bad guys – that plague much issue-driven British cinema.
The picture isn't as dramatically charged or informative as you might expect...yet it is moving and powerfully acted.
Oranges and Sunshine is a plodding, drab-looking chore which has facts and figures in place of dialogue, and plotlines which suggest, meekly, that they might be quite exciting, before they tiptoe away, never to be seen again.
Jim Loach's debut is a powerful, deeply moving, understated account of a major social injustice.
His own hope for glory
Emily Watson--A woman of substance who's still making waves
Emily Watson: 'I'm a character actor--who gets laid'
Interview: Emily Watson, actress
Jim Loach: Heritage bears fruit
The 'inspirational story' behind Oranges and Sunshine
The son also rises: Jim Loach directs his first film
Oranges and Sunshine wasn't just a false promise
Bear hugs
Child migrants: 'I didn't belong to anybody'
Edinburgh Filmhouse, Edinburgh from Friday April 1, 2011, until Monday April 25, 2011. More info: www.filmhousecinema.com
General release. Check local listings for show times.