ORPHANS (48)

Directed by: Peter Mullan

Starring: Douglas Henshall, Gary Lewis, Stephen McCole

The Pitch: On the night before their mother's funeral, four very different siblings get into various kinds of trouble.

Theo Sez: Pretty much a given that you can't set a film (almost) entirely over the course of a single night without achieving a certain atmosphere, but this conventionally unconventional tragi-comedy never really gels : a key moment is perhaps the cut early on from a grieving, tear-sodden son singing of mother-love to a disrespectful member of his pub audience laughing uproariously - the point being how alike the two men look (both in medium close-up), how similar laughing and crying really are. The film duly - and picaresquely - encompasses both, finding comedy in sadness and vice versa, but there's something slightly artificial about its scrupulous compassion, the way characters are foolish yet touching in their foolishness, the way a querulous and unpleasant old woman must be revealed as needy and vulnerable a few scenes later. It's a funky, heart-in-the-right-place comedy of disasters, yet it misses the core of truth that Ken Loach (the obvious comparison) finds in something like RAINING STONES - you're always aware the actors took off their bedraggled expressions and went out for a pint once the camera stopped rolling ; while the recurring focus on little kids, though it fits in with the whole 'orphans' motif, also takes the film perilously close to the cutesy. Best bit : sad-eyed, inept Thomas insists on carrying his Ma's coffin all by himself. "I think you'll find it a little heavy, sir," suggests the undertaker delicately. "She's not heavy," he replies, deadpan ; "She's my mother."