Product: Orphans (1998)
Rating: 5.0
Family Through and Through
Peter Mullan makes a mighty impressive debut as writer/director of a feature length, here with "Orphans." Wisely eschewing the Hollywood formula Mullan presses onward with the tale of four siblings dealing with the death of their beloved mother, confining almost every minute of screentime into the eve and day of the funeral. The tale veers from the blackest comedy to heart tugging truths about the connectedness of family, of rage and sorrow, fear and rivalry, misplaced feelings, illness and acceptance. It goes to a lot of other places as well.Any film that has a church's roof ripped and hurling off into a gale force wind, a Madonna crashing from a hit by a motorized wheelchair, a bartender who, literally, takes hostages for petty offenses (like reading his newspaper), a man who sees the positive aspect of nearly being stabbed to death (hey, if he can convince work authorities it was a work related injury he will be "compensated") has grabbed my interest. In addition to the quartet of family at the story's core the film is populated with just enough believable wack-job locals to make the tale seem pretty universal, despite its very Scottish setting.The cast is uniformly excellent, each one believable and crucial to the storytelling. What a gem of a movie this is!