The star of Ken Loach's MY NAME IS JOE, Mullan proves that his talent isn't relegated to acting. As a writer/director, he has crafted a supremely entertaining motion picture. ORPHANS tells the grittily realistic, hysterical, and deeply moving tale of a group of siblings who reunite in Glasgow on the eve of their mother's funeral. The four children mourn their mother's passing in a variety of ways, some of which are heartfelt and some of which are bizarre. As a potential thunderstorm threatens to damage the city, the situation compounds itself even further.
When Glasgow matriarch Mrs. Flynn passes away, her four adult children--Thomas, Michael, Sheila and John--gather at her home to mourn. Having prepared for the funeral in the morning, the four go to the pub for a drink. When Thomas, the eldest, performs his mother's favorite song karaoke-style and suddenly breaks down crying, Duncan, a tough pub patron, ridicules him. Michael, the second-eldest, fights Duncan and emerges with a stab wound in the gut. As Michael tries to stop the bleeding, he tells college-age John (Stephen McCole) of the scuffle and John vows revenge. Over the course of this already-taxing night, each sibling has a separate adventure: Thomas holds vigil in the church over his mother's casket. John searches for Duncan with the aid of his psychopathic Chinese-food-delivering cousin, Tanga. Sheila relies on the kindness of a friendly little girl when her motorized wheelchair ceases to work. Michael suffers bloodloss and the wrath of the world's fiercest pub owner as he tries to make it till morning so that he can pass off his wound as a work-related injury, thus collecting workers' compensation. Unfortunately, a violent thunderstorm is about to turn the city upside down, making the night even more difficult for the grieving Flynn clan to weather.
Theatrical Release: March 10, 2000 (19 CITIES)
DVD Features:
Region 1
Snap Case
Letterbox - 1.85
Audio:
Dolby Digital 4.0 Matrix Sound - English
Dolby Digital 5.1 - English
Interactive Features:
Scene Selection
Distributor Notes: 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.
Source: Image Entertainment, Inc.
Casting
Doreen Jones: Casting
Casting Associate
Lenny Mullan: Actor
Costume Designer
Lynn Aitken: Costume Designer
Designer
Campbell Gordon: Designer
Director of Photography
Grant Scott Cameron: Director of Photography
Executive Producer
Paddy Higson: Producer
Location Casting
John Booth: Location Casting
Makeup Designer
Anastasia Shirley: Makeup Artist
Production Manager/UPM
Martell: Production Manager
Sound Recordist
Peter Brill: Sound Recordist
Review 1:
"...Mullan has an eye for quietly affecting, connotatively rich visuals..."
Source: Sight and Sound
p.54-5 05/01/1999
Review 2:
"...Mullan finds black comedy in the most unlikely places and shows enormous skill in keeping the audience on the hook....It's a wonderfully constructed script..."
Source: Box Office
p.65 05/01/2000
Review 3:
"...ORPHANS is a film of great intensity and weird events..."
Source: Chicago Sun-Times
p.31 03/10/2000
Review 4:
"...Bold storytelling....The performances are universally strong..."
Source: Film Comment
p.76 03/01/2000
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