Had Angelina Jolie seen this film, she might have thought twice about a return visit to Vietnam. For The Italian is, among other things, a sharp critique about the buying and selling of children, no matter how well-intentioned the parties involved. Vanya is a kid ‘rescued’ from a Russian orphanage and certainly Kravchuk’s presentation of post-Soviet child-care suggests Vanya is one of the lucky ones. Yet the poppet sees things very differently and while he has little intention of returning to the impoverished violence of his former life, he doesn’t see a future for himself in Italy either. So he makes another choice, and embarks on a courageous road-trip to find his birth mother.

Although there are many familiar faces in Kravchuk’s film – loveable street urchins, orphanage bullies and one too many Faginskis – he convincingly portrays the reality that while location has moved, nothing much else has changed since Dickens wrote this story 170 years ago. Derivative perhaps, but here given a thoroughly modern makeover. He avoids creating a cinematic Panettone largely thanks to the impressive performance of six year old Spiridonov whose remarkable poise anchors the film. His is a joyously bitter-sweet presence that tugs at the heart as much as the mind, even when his journey takes on the dimension of an action thriller. Vanya is forced through an incredible number of situations, though thanks to Kravchuk’s neorealist melodramatic slant, they’re delivered with a satisfying tone of symbolism rather than commercialism.  Despite a somewhat over-ripe finale, The Italian pays off by walking us along a finely balanced line between morality and misery, hope and despair: the essentials of classical story-telling.

// COLIN FRASER