The very dark year in film continues its depressing ways with The Kite Runner, the adaptation of the popular book by Khaled Hosseini. The story of Amir and Hassan, two friends affected by one horrible day and the decision of one to stay silent in the face of evil, offers a little redemption for the human soul but fits snugly next to all the other depressing fare this holiday season. Death and misery dominate top ten lists this year with murder (Sweeney Todd), war (Atonement), paralysis (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly), and overall viciousness (No Country For Old Men and There Will Be Blood) dominating not only the multiplex but top ten lists. It almost makes you want to see Enchanted again.

But there's a reason that readers turned The Kite Runner into one of the most popular books of the last decade. It's a powerful story and, in Marc Forster's film, it's well-told. Forster, the director of Finding Neverland and Monster's Ball, handles some very delicate material in The Kite Runner with a surprising amount of reservation and even grace. Adapted by the excellent David Benioff (The 25th Hour, Troy), The Kite Runner has been overshadowed by the controversy that surrounds it, but it's a film about people that feels mostly real. Some elements of the story keep The Kite Runner from truly flying next to the best of the year, but the ensemble is so good and the source material so moving that Forster's film could rise to the top of the depressing holiday fare for a lot of movie goers this year. With stars like Tom Hanks and Johnny Depp about to release major films, The Kite Runner isn't getting a lot of press, but the book wasn't a hit right away either. It took word-of-mouth, something that could easily happen to the film too.

The film opens with Amir (the very good Khalid Abdalla), a writer who is reflecting on his life in Kabul before the Russian invasion and in the days just after. We flashback with him to those happy days with his best friend, his servant's son, Hassan, a particularly good kite runner. It works like this - you use your kite to cut the string of your opponent's and then everyone runs to claim the falling kite. One day, Hassan runs down the wrong alley and crosses paths with some bullies who enact a horrible revenge on him. Amir watches from a hiding place and says and does nothing. His shame forces him to set up Hassan and his father and the two leave Kabul, just as the Russians are invading. Years later, Amir can't even bring himself to deal with his horrible decisions he made in Kabul until he writes about it and learns that there might be a way for him to find some karmic retribution.

There are a number of scenes in Kite Runner that could have felt manipulative or melodramatic in other hands, but Forster and Benioff handle the entire project with a delicate nobility. The Kite Runner never feels like it's trying to sell you something like a lot of retribution stories do, which, of course, makes it more powerful by feeling natural. We believe what's happening in Kite Runner and start to feel for and identify with the characters, something that comes about through in the universally good performances throughout the film. The story (and I assume this is true in the book, which I haven't read) falters for me in the final act, when the retribution for Amir comes a little too easily. People make bad decisions every day. That's believable. That anyone would ever have the chance to right their wrong in quite such a dramatic fashion as in the final act of Kite Runner feels like something that could only happen in fiction. Despite the unbelievable final act, there's much to recommend about Kite Runner, from the natural ensemble to the restrained direction of Forster. Fans of the book are unlikely to be disappointed and people new to the material may find a small film that lingers in their memory much longer than the hyped big ones.