Orphans (1998)

Brought together by their mother's death, four siblings of a Catholic working class family are propelled into a comical nightmare of absurd mishaps and bittersweet mayhem. During a violent rainstorm, the three Flynn brothers and their wheelchair-bound sister gather on the eve of their dear mum's funeral to cope with their tragic loss. Each sibling, weathering the storm in their own peculiar way, retreats to a different world in their dark hometown of Glasgow where anything might, and does, happen. Winner, Best Film, at the 1998 Venice Film Festival.

Why in the world isn't this writer/director world famous?

This is a wonderful movie, and to think it is a debut film. Man. I had seen "The Magdalene Sisters" twice,
and loved it so much that I looked up the director, found this movie, and ordered it on Netflix. It starts
off sort of slow, but gathers speed and intensity, and winds up a home run. This writer/director should
be working. His NOT working robs me of pleasure. Mr. Mullan, if ever you check these things (and I know
famous people sometimes do), for the love of God get off your rump and get to work. If you drink stop. If
you drug it, stop. If you're just plain lazy, get some gumption. If you've been this good on your first two
films, you could be a world-beater.

Get back to work. Please. (And the actors are great, down to the tiniest part. Just dynamite stuff all around). July 14, 2007

If you don't love the Scots...

Being a fan of Peter Mullan, I wanted to see this -- I think his first directing effort. It's hard to take, more than a little over the top -- but in the end, it is incredibly moving and a remarkable work. September 15, 2006

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! July 18, 2005

Great Glasgow Experience

As the plot line flows dark and humourous, the Glasgow experience really shines through a variety of charachters and locations visited in this film. A multi-faceted city, this movie expresses both the ridiculous and the beautiful of Glasgow. I also recommend Rat Catcher as a counterpoint to Orphans. March 14, 2003

One of the best films of the last ten years

Peter Mullan's debut film as writer/director...looks, at first sight, highly unpromising.

It's about four Scottish siblings between late teens and late thirties dealing with the death of their mother. Okay, if you happen to be a fan of, say, Kieslowski, you may perk up at this point, but this is not that sort of film. Like "Three Colours: Blue", it never shies away from the pain of grieving. Unlike that film, it also has a completely berserk sense of the ridiculous.

The siblings themselves are the pious elder brother Thomas, his sceptical younger brother Michael, sister Sheila who has cerebral palsy (I don't know if Rosemarie Stephenson, who plays Sheila, actually _has_ cerebral palsy - but whether she does or not, she's truly extraordinary) and hothead college-boy John. The story takes place during the night before the funeral, and the morning of the funeral itself, and it gets going in brutal style with a nasty fight in a pub. It goes on to include a plaster statue of the Virgin Mary being shattered on a church floor, a disastrous attempt to scare someone who happens to be jerking off at the time, the most malevolent bar-owner in cinema history, and a church roof being torn off in a thunderstorm.

"Orphans" is one of the very few films to approach the insanity and awful comedy of grief, the way that messy life insists on intruding upon your own private despair. Mullan's script is ruthlessly truthful, his direction is unfailingly inventive and daring, and the film manages to be the product of a truly unholy schtup between Robert Bresson and the Weitz brothers. The cast is uniformly excellent, with special frond-type things going to the four leads, Douglas Henshall, Gary Lewis, Stephen McCole and Rosemarie Stephenson. It also has a sort-of cameo by Billy Connolly, of all people, as an unseen, absent God.

Filmmaking doesn't get much darker, funnier or wiser than this. Do yourself a favour and check it out. April 17, 2002

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