Elementary, My Dear Watson (Emily)

By Victoria Looseleaf

There is nothing elementary about the one and only Emily Watson, whose 1996 mercurial film debut in Lars von Trier’s Breaking the Waves (for which she was Oscar-nominated) torpedoed her into the upper ranks of Hollywood (meanwhile, von Trier torpedoed himself at this year’s Cannes Festival with his pro-Nazi remarks…). Two years later Watson gave us another volcanic portrayal, that of real-life cellist Jacqueline du Pré, who was cut down in her prime with multiple sclerosis (and for which Watson received her second Oscar nod), in the three-hankie weeper, Hilary and Jackie. (And no, there were absolutely no references, hidden or otherwise, to then first lady Hillary Clinton and the former wife of JFK and Ari, Jackie Bouvier Kennedy Onassis.)

And while Watson seems to have a predilection for playing real-life people (she was Angela in Angela’s Ashes, the film adaptation of Frank McCourt’s Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir of the same name; and she assayed the role of Anne, Peter Sellers’ first wife in the HBO biopic, The Life and Death of Peter Sellers), Watson’s also made a host of narrative films. Hello, Gosford Park (helmed by the late great Robert Altman in 2001), Paul Thomas Anderson’s Punch-Drunk love (yes, opposite goofball Adam Sandler), and Red Dragon (ooh, beware Hannibal the “Cannibal” Lecter), the last two films from 2002.

In short, Emily Watson is one of the greatest actors of her – or any – generation. Statuesque (she’s 5’9″) and strikingly beautiful, with a malleable face and deep-set, piercing blue eyes, this gal cannot utter a false word, telegraph a wrong emotion or, indeed, do any onscreen wrong. (It’s the pictures that sometimes go wrong, cue Tim Robbins’ Cradle Will Rock…)

We also loved her in Synedoche, New York, Charlie Kaufman’s surreal tale of a struggling director played by the always fabulous Philip Seymour Hoffman, which was, admittedly, more of an ensemble piece and the last film we’d seen of hers way back in 2008. So it’s with extreme pleasure that we welcome Emily Watson back to leading lady status in another Oscar-worthy performance. The flick is Oranges and Sunshine, directed by Jim Loach (Ken’s son, in his feature debut, at left in photo), with Watson playing another real-life person (albeit one still alive), Margaret Humphreys. A Nottingham social worker, this courageous gal uncovered one of the most outrageous social scandals in recent times: the forced migration of children from the United Kingdom to Australia (some were sent to New Zealand and Rhodesia, as well, though this film deals only with the Outback “orphans”), a story she recounts in her book, Empty Cradles.

Watson, a mother of two small children, herself, gives a rich, profoundly moving performance of a woman who, almost single-handedly and against overwhelming odds, reunited thousands of families, brought authorities to account and drew worldwide attention to an extraordinary miscarriage of justice. What does it mean to lose one’s identity, to be high-jacked, as it were, from a living parent and shipped thousands of miles away to an alien land?

Ghastly and utterly unfathomable, it’s a story that nevertheless needs to be told. In Loach’s hands, it’s told deftly. Filming in both England and Australia, which Loach likened to shooting a “road movie,” the film is nothing fancy, but a beautifully treated emotional rendering of all involved, including masterful performances by Hugo Weaving and David Wenham (in photo below). As erstwhile child migrants, they, too, seek the help of Humphreys (at left), in locating their mothers, their families, their stolen pasts.

Formal apologies were issued in 2009 and 2010 by Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, respectively. But it’s not nearly enough – how could it be. And don’t even mention any kind of financial remuneration for the victims – it’s not there and won’t ever be. Instead, let us praise Humphreys, a modest, self-effacing woman, who is nothing less than a hero – something she doesn’t buy, however – maintaining only that she is, “doing her job.” Happily, she continues doing her job, and we thank her for this.

To hear our Classical KUSC chat with Watson, Loach and Humphreys click here. And check out Oranges and Sunshine, a movie that deserves our attention – and the attention of the world. This appalling act could never happen in today’s digital age, but the fact that it did, beginning in 1947 – and went on systematically for 25 years – is a blight on humanity, one that now, because of Humphreys, offers hope. Go see this astonishing film and then, please…call your mother!