Metacritic reviews

It's a carefully and almost classically balanced combination of ingredients, blending dirty-faced realism (so much more damning because it judges and condemns no one) with mystical fable of quest and homecoming.

I was utterly gripped by The Italian. The only problem is that I was rooting for the bad guys.

There is something slightly magical about the lighting, almost as if this were a fantasy land from which Vanya might actually make an escape. This sense of unreality, of magical thinking and wishing, carries the story and Vanya through a remarkable journey.

The result is a picture half sweet, half bitter. Charles Dickens would approve.

It's a wish-fulfillment fantasy posing as hard-edged realism.

Equal parts "Oliver Twist" and "Pinocchio," Russian director Andrei Kravchuk's fictional hearttugger exposes a troubling real-life practice in contemporary Russia: the buying and selling of abandoned children to rich foreign couples.

A remarkably compelling presence, Spiridonov commands attention without pandering or appealing to pity. In fact, for a 6-year-old, he is possessed of an uncanny poise.

The film flirts frequently with sentimentality, falling for it heedlessly at a couple of crucial junctures. Still, the overall style is more astringent than moist, and the hero is a little toughie of endearing tenderness.

There are too many familiar faces in this story, from kindhearted whores to street-urchin bullies. But even if circumstances edge toward the unlikely, Kravchuk and Spiridonov make an effective team, exploring the realities that lead to so much heartbreak for so many children.

Lured, perhaps, by the promise of international markets, Kravchuk instead opts for routine uplift, and once the heroic journey is set in motion, the rest is ballast.