Oranges and Sunshine is an equally confronting and tender story about loos of identity of abuse of power, as told through the heroic actions of a secular saint who stood up to those who had no voice.

The “child migrant” scandal revolved around the deportation of up to 130,000 lower class and orphaned children, from the grey drab of Britain to the promise of “oranges and sunshine” in Australia. Instead they were met with abuse while under the care of secular and religious charities.

Although it began in the 1890s, it wasn’t until the 1980s that the carefully tucked away operation was exposed, through the work of Nottingham social worker Margaret Humphreys (here played by Emily Watson). It is Humphreys book “Empty Cradles” which Oranges and Sunshine is based on, and this is as much her story as it is of those lost children, now lost adults.

Oranges and Sunshine also marks the feature film debut of director Jim Loach, son of acclaimed filmmaker Ken Loach. Knowing full well that the strength of his film rests in Margaret’s  incredible story and the stories of those physically, mentally, and spiritually abused, Loach presents his film as straight forward as possible. Some have labelled it “television movie” quality. I say it is the truth at its most direct.

In the casting of Emily Watson as Humphries, that truth is presented with a reserved, yet never emotionless, power. Watson appears in almost every scene, and it’s up to her to portray the emotional weight created by decades of secrecy, humiliation, and pain. When it’s revealed that Humphries is suffering from Post Traumatic Stress disorder (brought on by her role as confessor), Watson sells it without over selling it (as others might do).

Good too are Hugo Weaving and David Wenham as Jack and Len, two victims of abuse who assists Humphreys in her mission.

Weaving plays his part with a clear fragility. Wenham plays his with an outer machismo hiding the internal pain. A scene where Wenham and Watson visit the “ground zero” of many of these abuses, the Christian Brothers school in Bindoon (Western Australia), features Len’s unravelling.

Again, it’s done with truth in his actions and his words, a mission statement for this film as a whole.