Product Details

• Actors: Douglas Henshall, Gary Lewis, Rosemarie Stevenson, Stephen McCole, Ann Swan
• Directors: Peter Mullan
• Writers: Peter Mullan
• Producers: Frances Higson, Paddy Higson
• Format: Color, NTSC
• Language: English
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Image Entertainment
• VHS Release Date: July 17, 2001
• Run Time: 101 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00005KH2S
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #258,452 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very dark, but very funny Scottish film, July 23, 2001

By 

"[e-mail]" (Coppell, TX United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Orphans (DVD)

"Orphans" is one of the best Scottish films in the last few years. More accessible than the likes of "My Name Is Joe", this film has a very dark streak of humour running through it. Dark, bitter but very very funny.

Essentially the tale of three brothers dealing with the death of their mother & the organising of her funeral, it's really about how the brothers relate to each other & relate to the death of the one bond they shared.

Highly reccomended.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best films of the last ten years, April 16, 2002

By 

"lexo-2" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Orphans (DVD)

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.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Why in the world isn't this writer/director world famous?, July 14, 2007

By 

moviegoer "Jumbo" (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Orphans (DVD)

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).