Oranges and Sunshine tells the story of Margaret Humphreys (Emily Watson, two-time Academy Award® nominee for Breaking the Waves and Hilary and Jackie), a social worker from Nottingham who uncovered one of the most significant social scandals of recent times: the deportation of thousands of children from the United Kingdom to 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 labor and life in institutions. Almost single-handedly, against overwhelming odds, and with little regard for her own well-being, Margaret reunited thousands of families, brought authorities to account and drew worldwide attention to an extraordinary miscarriage of justice.

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[youtube https://youtu.be/Vf-LEddKM0w?t=2029]

Video Quality

Oranges and Sunshine comes to Blu-Ray in a 1080p presentation that is pretty solid across the board. The film is never daring when it comes to its cinematography, but it never feels amateurish either. The colors are very natural to the environment, and every shade feels fully realized in this transfer. The skin tones look very detailed and natural all around with subtle details apparent in close-ups. The white levels are strong without veering into blooming, and the blacks only appear the slightest bit milky at points without suffering from any compression artifacts. The varied stunning environments pop off the screen with an incredible amount of detail and dimension. Although all manner of atrocities happened in these places, this transfer makes you feel as if you would want to visit someday. There are no instances of intrusive digital noise in the presentation outside of a few brief moments against certain backgrounds. Cohen Media Group has delivered a capable presentation.

Audio Quality

The film comes to Blu-Ray with an agreeable DTS-HD 5.1 and 2.0 Master Audio track in the original English. The movie does feature some minor altercations, but the calm moments make up the lion’s share of the film as they provide environmental activity which comes through particularly well. The low end of the track never really does more than add a bit of base texture to certain scenes. The dialogue and sound effects are perfectly balanced with the score where nothing gets lost in the mix. The familiar score underscores the heightened emotions as it flows through with notable fidelity. Surround channels get some subtle activity from the din of the survivors at their gatherings and various environmental noises. This track does everything that is asked of it very well.

Special Features

Interviews with Cast and Crew: These creative figures each give brief “sound bite” interviews where they are offered up fairly standard prompts about the story, their characters, the working relationship amongst everyone, what attracted them to the project and more.

- Emily Watson (5:18)

- Hugo Weaving (5:24)

- David Wenham (2:57)

- Director Jim Loach (5:46)

- Writer Rona Munro (6:07)

Making Of Featurette: A nearly 14-minute piece which utilizes some of these interviews, although this time in a stitched-together form with clips from the film.

Trailer: The two-minute trailer is provided here.

Final Thoughts

Oranges and Sunshine is an emotionally devastating story that unfolds in a straightforward yet impactful way on film. Emily Watson is the perfect figure to inhabit all of the complex emotions swirling around as revelations grow in intensity. There is a spark missing somewhere either in the supporting cast or in the investigative process that never allows the film to rise to the level of something like Spotlight, but it is still a fine piece of art all the same. Cohen Media Group and Kino Lorber have released a Blu-Ray featuring a great A/V presentation and a couple of decent special features. If you are engaged by true-life national scandals, this one is brought to life competently. Recommended

Oranges and Sunshine is currently available to purchase on Blu-Ray and Digital.

Note: Images presented in this review are not reflective of the image quality of the Blu-Ray.

Disclaimer: Cohen Media Group and Kino Lorber have supplied a copy of this disc free of charge for review purposes. All opinions in this review are the honest reactions of the author.