Vanya is a six-year-old boy in a Russian orphanage who has been chosen by an Italian family for adoption. He’s considered one of the lucky ones, as he’s to leave for Italy in two weeks.

Here we see the legal and illegal side of the adoption process in Russia. The headmaster, while concerned about his boys, is more interested in his kickbacks and the booze he gets for closing a deal. A couple arranges the adoptions. And the woman ensures that she has a comfortable life, a nice car, designer clothes and jewelry.

Things run smoothly until the young mother of an adopted boy changes her mind, but it’s too late. Her son now has a new name and cannot be found. At the same time, the boy, Vanya, decides that he’d like to find his birth mother.

Vanya asks a girl who is part of a teen group to teach him how to read, so that he can sneak a look at his file while the headmaster is in an alcohol-induced stupor. The girl supports an interesting sub plot about girls on the street, young pimps, and life for kids that have a minimal or no support system. She helps Vanya take the train ride that jump-starts his trip to find his mother and, hopefully, the way to a better life herself.

The couple arranging the adoption is irate when they learn that Vanya wants to cancel the adoption. While there are some predictable events that occur, there are some surprises, and the film is kept from being too dark in tone.

Vanya is an appealing young boy, who seems on the surface to be able to do things that a six-year-old would not be capable of doing. However, the week we screened this film was the same week that a real-life 10-year-old boy from Seattle evaded police in a high-speed chase, and talked his way onto two airplanes before being apprehended. With a little help and some moxie, cute kids can pull off things that adults could not.

The Russia we see in this film is not the one that is shown in film clips and travel posters. People live on the street and there is trash along the countryside that is often associated with the shantytowns of Africa. The setting, along with gas being a hard to get commodity, provides a realistic tone to the film.

American films don’t often place young children in harm’s way in the fashion of a magazine format TV show, except perhaps on the homeless. The soon to be released film Hounddog, with Dakota Fanning, is a notable exception. If you are interested in something that has more of an edge than the excellent but somewhat charming (and hopeful) The Pursuit of Happyness, be sure to see The Italian.