Billed as the blackest comedy of the year, Scottish actor Peter Mullan's
debut as a writer-director is certainly dark and hilariously funny
in parts, but what strikes most is the visceral anger and pain which
lashes out from the screen.
Set over the course of a single night, grief prompts some bizarre and
stricken behaviour in a family of four adult siblings who gather together
to prepare for their mother's funeral in the morning. During a pub brawl
Michael (Douglas Henshall) is knifed. While he almost bleeds to death in
the process of trying to get through the night without medical treatment
in order to pass it off as a work injury the following day, his brother John
(Stephen Cole) wreaks revenge in Glasgow for the stabbing. Eldest brother
Thomas (Gary Lewis) spends his all-night church vigil piecing together a
statue of the Virgin Mary which cerebral palsy-sufferer Sheila (Rosemarie
Stevenson) breaks during an argument. Sheila is subsequently left stranded
when her wheelchair breaks down in a cobbled street. Increasing
meteorological turbulence works as an apt metaphor as the night
progresses, culminating in an act of surreal violence - blowing the church
roof off entirely. Peter Mullan may have made his name in a Ken Loach film
(My Name is Joe), and visits similar characters and milieux as Loach,
but his sensibilities are far more surreal and bombastic.
With its relentless narrative drive and somewhat anarchic plotting, it is
occasionally hard to keep up with Orphans - and this is not helped by the characters'
broad Glaswegian accents and dialect. But the fine ensemble cast, who
embrace both the film's light and dark moods, and the many quirky scenes
help to make Orphans a truly original view of a family coming to terms with
grief.
Reviewed by Monika Maurer
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