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

38 12 Rounds
48 17 Again
76 Adventureland
48 Angels & Demons
54 Battle for Terra
xx Bruno
80 Coraline
40 Dance Flick
83 Drag Me to Hell
72 Earth
45 Fast & Furious
61 Fighting
34 Ghosts of Girlfriends Past
72 Gran Torino
73 Hangover, The
47 Hannah Montana: The Movie
51 Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
54 Imagine That
41 Knowing
32 Land of the Lost
56 Monsters vs. Aliens
34 My Life in Ruins
51 My Sister's Keeper
46 Next Day Air
42 Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
54 Observe and Report
25 Obsessed
48 Proposal, The
70 Public Enemies
61 Soloist, The
83 Star Trek
64 State of Play
55 Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, The
52 Terminator Salvation
35 Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
77 Under the Sea 3D
88 Up
43 X-Men Origins: Wolverine
34 Year One

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

sort by name

sort by score

67 $9.99
75 24 City
66 Adoration
74 Afghan Star
48 Alien Trespass
56 American Violet
82 Anvil! The Story of Anvil
57 Away We Go
81 Beaches of Agnes, The
62 Big Man Japan
28 Big Shot-Caller, The
78 Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story, The
55 Brothers Bloom, The
82 Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country
xx Call of the Wild
63 Cheri
62 Cherry Blossoms
63 Dead Snow
65 Departures
18 Downloading Nancy
58 Easy Virtue
70 End of the Line, The
77 Every Little Step
64 Examined Life
80 Food, Inc.
38 Gigantic
56 Girl from Monaco, The
67 Girlfriend Experience, The
87 Gomorrah
89 Goodbye Solo
63 Great Buck Howard, The
79 Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
xx Home
82 Hunger
91 Hurt Locker, The
16 I Hate Valentine's Day
81 Il Divo
54 Is Anybody There?
71 Jerichow
58 Julia
74 Lemon Tree
36 Life is Hot in Cracktown
40 Limits of Control, The
42 Little Ashes
64 Lymelife
50 Management
57 Merry Gentleman, The
66 Moon
35 New York
62 Not Forgotten
xx Offshore
78 O'Horten
64 Outrage
40 Paris 36
54 Pontypool
71 Pressure Cooker
52 Quiet Chaos
83 Revanche
67 Rudo y Cursi
86 Seraphine
65 Sex Positive
70 Shall We Kiss?
77 Sin Nombre
59 Sleep Dealer
74 Song of Sparrows, The
54 Stoning of Soraya M., The
82 Sugar
84 Summer Hours
61 Sunshine Cleaning
28 Surveillance
42 Tennessee
63 Tetro
64 Throw Down Your Heart
80 Tokyo Sonata
63 Tokyo!
70 Tony Manero
74 Treeless Mountain
88 Tulpan
74 Two Lovers
83 Tyson
83 U2 3D
60 Under Our Skin
69 Unmistaken Child
69 Valentino: The Last Emperor
22 What Goes Up
45 Whatever Works
57 Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love

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