Bravo!

This movie was the perfect thing to see last night. If you like foreign films about adorable orphans--and if you have a heartbeat--you'll enjoy it, too.

Hang in there if you start watching and are unsure if you want to continue to the end. Even though I knew it won 30 industry awards, I wondered a few times if movie's (perfectly suited) depressing, grey pallor from the dreary Russian weather--that seemed to bleed from the screen, turning my comfortable living room into a claustraphobic chamber--was ever going to lift.

I had hopes that it would, but I wasn't quite prepared for the ending.

It felt like being strangled for over an hour and then suddenly breathing in your lung's maximum capacity of the purest, cleanest air on the sunniest afternoon. It took my breath away, and then gave it back 1000-fold.

As the credits started rolling we rewound the last 10 minutes and watched the ending again. And again.

I'm sure there is a word for something that is both simple and complex at the same time; altogether gorgeous in the most humble of ways-- that's what the ending of this movie is.