Now Playing
Critics & Publications
Archives: A-Z Index
Advanced Search

Upcoming Release Calendar
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums

sort by name

sort by score

53 Australia
41 Beverly Hills Chihuahua
57 Body of Lies
68 Bolt
63 Burn After Reading
59 Cadillac Records
58 City of Ember
82 Dark Knight, The
43 Eagle Eye
36 Fly Me to the Moon
41 Four Christmases
28 Haunting of Molly Hartley. The
57 High School Musical 3: Senior Year
35 How to Lose Friends & Alienate People
57 Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D
52 Longshots, The
61 Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa
85 Milk
35 Mirrors
39 Nights in Rodanthe
45 Pride and Glory
xx Punisher: War Zone
58 Quantum of Solace
36 Righteous Kill
59 Role Models
19 Saw V
57 Secret Life of Bees, The
49 Sex Drive
49 Soul Men
36 Space Chimps
51 Transporter 3
56 Twilight
70 Vicky Cristina Barcelona
56 W.
93 WALL-E
56 Zack and Miri Make a Porno

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

sort by name

sort by score

64 Appaloosa
69 Ashes of Time Redux
68 August Evening
54 Battle in Seattle
76 Betrayal - Nerakhoon, The
xx Black Balloon, The
55 Boy in the Striped Pajamas, The
50 Breakfast with Scot
63 Changeling
47 Choke
84 Christmas Tale, A
41 Cthulhu
81 Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father
xx Dostana
62 Duchess, The
46 Dukes, The
63 Eden
xx Extreme Movie
69 Fear(s) of the Dark
26 Filth and Wisdom
28 Fireproof
71 Frost/Nixon
82 Frozen River
43 Gardens of the Night
73 Girl Cut in Two, A
54 Good Dick
30 Guitar, The
84 Happy-Go-Lucky
31 Hounddog
26 House of the Sleeping Beauties
47 How About You
68 Hunger
72 I Served the King of England
70 I.O.U.S. A
40 Igor
78 I've Loved You So Long
63 JCVD
27 Lake City
82 Let the Right One In
xx Let Them Chirp Awhile
xx Local Color
89 Man on Wire
84 Momma's Man
51 Morning Light
34 My Name Is Bruce
xx Nobel Son
40 Other End of the Line, The
34 Otto; or Up with Dead People
75 Pool, The
77 Pray the Devil Back to Hell
82 Rachel Getting Married
56 Religulous
32 Repo! The Genetic Opera
53 RocknRolla
57 Sixty Six
85 Slumdog Millionaire
57 Special
79 Stranded: I Have Come from a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains
67 Synecdoche, New York
82 Tell No One
83 Trouble the Water
43 Tru Loved
83 U2 3D
59 We Are Wizards
55 What Just Happened?

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Italian, The
Sony Pictures Classics


7.6

based on 25 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 6 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: PG-13 for some violence, sexual content, language and thematic issues

Starring Kolya Spiridonov, Denis Moiseenko, Sasha Sirotkin, Andrei Yelizarov, Vladimir Shipov, Polina Vorobieva, Olga Shuvalova, and Dima Zemlyanko

In his feature directorial debut, director Andrei Kravchuk addresses with intelligence and poignancy the urgent issue of illegal adoption in Russia, which has become a well-documented international crisis. The Italian is based on the true story of a small Russian boy abandoned in an orphanage who goes in search of his birth mother. (Sony Pictures Classics)

GENRE(S):	Drama \| Family/Kids \| Foreign
WRITTEN BY:	Andrei Romanov
DIRECTED BY:	Andrei Kravchuk
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: May 22, 2007 Theatrical: January 19, 2007
RUNNING TIME:	97 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	Russia
LANGUAGE(S):	Russian (with English subtitles)

Original title "Italianetz"

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

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.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

Earns its happy ending like few other contemporary dramas concerned with the fate of a child. It puts you through hell for that ending, in fact, hell being modern-day Russia.

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

Vanya's journey to find his mom is not easy or picturesque or heartwarming. But it's also never without hope.

Slate Dana Stevens

The Italian is an aesthetic gem, but a moral muddle.

The Hollywood Reporter Frank Scheck

Combining the influences of Italian neorealism with Dickensian melodrama, Andrei Kravchuk's simultaneously tough-minded and sentimental The Italian is as bracing as it is moving.

New York Magazine David Edelstein

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

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

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.

TV Guide Ken Fox

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.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

At heart, The Italian is a Dickensian tale that paints a vivid portrait of post-Glasnost Russia en route to a four-handkerchief ending.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

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

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

Before reaching a bittersweet finale that doesn't ring as loudly as it should, The Italian starts to look too much like a neo-realist "Home Alone" sequel, as Spiridonov outwits his pursuers in one scene after another.

San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein

The result is a deeply moving experience, alternately funny and sad.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

It's foreign, it's inspiring, it has an adorably resourceful kid; it depicts grinding misery in a land far from West Newton, and it holds out the possibility of clambering over all that misery to attain your dream.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

It's an old-fashioned Soviet road movie, filled with kind souls of the otherwise desperate (and at times predatory) world.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

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

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Jason Anderson

The Italian belongs in group of excellent recent Russian films -- most notably Andrei Zvyagintsev's "The Return" and Boris Khlebnikov and Aleksei Popogrebsky's "Roads to Koktebel" -- that have examined the effects of the country's woes on its youngest and most vulnerable citizens, as well as the problems faced by any child unfortunate enough to have faulty or absent parents. At its best, The Italian conveys this grave issue with admirable clarity and power.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

A powerful indictment of Russia's illegal adoption industry - and a story of pipsqueak resolve and resilience - The Italian is clear-eyed and tough in its depiction of a corrupt, atrophied social order.

Chicago Reader Andrea Gronvall

May be derivative, but it's still engrossing, largely because of its appealing juvenile lead.

Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano

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.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

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.

Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan

The juvenile performances are impressive, as they usually are in foreign films, and Spiridonov handles some grueling material with impressive maturity. But the movie comes undone with an abrupt and preposterous finale.

Austin Chronicle Steve Davis

Other than the unsatisfactory ending, however, there's much that is commendable in the The Italian, not the least of which are its social criticisms of the buying and selling of children through the adoption businesses currently thriving in Russia and neighboring eastern European countries. In some respects, unfortunately, not much has changed since the world was introduced to little Oliver Twist nearly two centuries ago.

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

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.

Premiere Ethan Alter

The depiction of everyday life at the orphanage is far more compelling than Vanya's personal quest. It's unfortunate that once the Italian hits the road, The Italian loses its way.

Village Voice Ella Taylor

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.

The average user rating for this movie is 7.6 (out of 10) based on 6 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Chad S. gave it a7:
There are two women in Kolya's life; Nataha(Polina Vorobieva) and Irka(Olga Shuvalova). Both are orphaned girls who were never adopted; the former is a young housefrau, and the latter is a whore. Nataha wants Vanya(Kolya Spiridonov) to leave with the Italian couple, but Irka believes it's more important to find his birth mother. "The Italian" asks the viewer to weigh the political against the personal. If you agree with Irka's decision to kidnap Vanya, their journey is deemed as a necessary one; an imperative to maintaining one's identity. Nataha, on the other hand, can be easily construed as the real hero, even though she's unseen once "The Italian" turns into a travelogue of bleak Russian landscapes. Nataha is a traitor of sorts, a benign cog in the machine that funnels kids out of the country, but she understands how ultra-leftist affect the welfare and potential happiness for a throwaway child. She understands that a child is not a national resource. At the end, Vanya's narration indicates what the filmmaker's beliefs are concerning the illegal adoption of Russian orphans in heartbreaking fashion.

David G. gave it an8:
A very touching movie, this tells the story of a young orphan, passed over by a family who has paid the corrupt head of the orphanage. For once, a Russian movie that is not based on nationalistic fervour.

Discuss this movie in our forums

Return to top of page

Italian, The Sony Pictures Classics

Italian, The
Sony Pictures Classics