Critic Reviews

At the film's center is Emily Watson's pitch-perfect performance as Margaret Humphreys, the real-life social worker who in 1986 stumbled over the hidden practice.

It's powerful, gut-wrenching stuff, and it doesn't need tarting up.

The most powerful sequences in the movie are the linked vignettes involving Margaret and the various grown-up children whom she attempts to help in their search for – what, exactly? Closure? Catharsis?

A deeply moving study of emotionally scarred adults who were illegally deported as children to Australia from Britain in the 1940s and '50s.

The movie belongs to Hugo Weaving and David Wenham, both playing what one newspaper dubs "the lost children of the Empire," men broken by the appalling conditions that met them in their new homeland.

Of course, it might take time for Jim Loach to catch up with his father's track record; Oranges & Sunshine is a good place to start.

One question is not addressed by the movie: Why were the children deported in the first place? Yes, we know the "reasons," but what were the motives?

Emily Watson, who always brings a special grace to the screen, gives a multilayered performance to the role of Margaret Humphreys.

Moving if low-key, Jim Loach's debut feature is proof that compassionate, socially conscious filmmaking runs in the family.

Rona Munro's screenplay for Oranges and Sunshine is unnecessarily flighty. As the story ricochets between Britain and Australia, the film often loses track of time and becomes fragmented as it struggles to integrate too many subplots. What holds it together is Ms. Watson's calm, sturdy performance.