Kids' Rights: The Business of Adoption

New York filmmakers Michael Dudko and Olga Rudnieva are a Ukrainian-American couple whose interest in adopting a child leads them on a tangled docu-diary journey that is wide-ranging, unfocused, often surprising, and sometimes genuinely horrifying. Despite the presence of 132.2 million orphaned children worldwide, the process of adoption—international adoption, especially—is maddeningly difficult. Prospective parents may spend $25,000, wait for years, and come up empty-handed. Sir Elton John, who alongside long-term partner David Furnish sought to give a loving home to a boy from the Ukraine, was refused on numerous counts (amounting to homophobia; the now-embattled Ukraine does not come off well here). Divided into seven chapters, the film also touches on adolescent homelessness and addiction; child abuse and infanticide; parents with special-needs kids; the media climate of hyper-sexuality that inspires teen pregnancies; and China's infamous one-child policy. Other interviewees here include authors Dave Pelzer, Paul R. Ehrlich, and Francesca Polini. The overall conclusion: the stultifying adoption marketplace coupled with government nanny-state political-correctness essentially amounts to a "war on children" that prevents the most desperate youngsters from reaching safety and attaining stability. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (C. Cassady)