Boiled down to its simple core, The Kite Runner is an elongated coming-of-age story. The film spans over 20 years, three countries, and four governments (three implied by location; one depicted in scaled-down but still brutal detail), and it's full of cultural heritage, family secrets, and personal demons. Adapted from Khaled Hosseini's bestselling novel, this is a film that is upfront with its thematic implications, wearing them on its sleeve as it does its twists of fate, coincidences, and overt emotional proddings, but it's still an affecting tale in spite or because of that exposure.

My first reaction when I saw it at the Chicago International Film Festival was quite strong but still reserved. Its themes struck me deeply but something was a bit off. Upon a second viewing before its release, the film's impact lessened considerably and my reservations heightened. The Kite Runner is manipulative filmmaking, to be sure, but director Marc Forster manipulates us so well, we overlook the fact in the viewing and forgive it in the memory. It is a fine story about a complex problem of conscience, told with little grace but a naïve, effective simplicity.

In San Francisco in 2000, Amir (Khalid Abdalla) returns home to find a package at his doorstep. It is a bundle of his first novel, which he opens in front of his proud wife Soraya (Atossa Leoni). Amir receives a phone call. "You should come home," the man on the other line says; "There is a way to be good again." Flash back to Kabul, 1978, where a young Amir (Zekeria Ebrahimi) is flying a kite with his friend and servant Hassan (Ahmad Khan Mahmidzada). Amir doesn't just fly his kite; he battles other kites with it. Hassan is the best kite runner in Kabul, loyally chasing down kites Amir has defeated as prizes for his friend.

Hassan admits he would eat dirt if Amir asked him to, but "why would you ask me?" he wonders. Amir's father Baba (Homayoun Ershadi), though, isn't overly impressed with his son. He lets Hassan fight his battles and never stands up for himself. There's a big kite fighting competition in the city, and after Amir defeats all comers, Hassan faithfully chases down the last kite. When he doesn't return after a while, Amir follows Hassan, only to witness his friend brutally attacked and defiled by local bullies.

Amir lives up to his father's opinion of him and does nothing to prevent it. It haunts him well into the time we first meet Amir as a grown man in the US. He starts off blaming Hassan for his own cowardice in not acting. The two stop talking (Hassan barely leaves his room), and eventually, Amir works to get Hassan kicked out of his father's house. By ridding himself of the sight of the result of his failure, Amir hopes to eliminate his feelings of weakness as well. Things work out the way Amir had hoped, but as for continuing a normal life in his homeland, the world has a way of ruining plans.