Like this year's "Atonement", Marc Foster's "The Kite Runner" is a superb, dark drama centered around the tragic consequences of childhood perfidy. Where lovers were forever condemned to be apart in the former, friends in the latter were forever alienated with ultimate tragic consequences.

As most of you know who have read the book (I did not), the story deals with two young boys (endearingly played by Zekiria Ebrahimi and Ahmad Khan Mahmoodzada) in Kabul, Afghanistan, immediately prior to the Soviet invasion. One, Amir (Ebrahimi), is the son of money and privilege, while the other, Hassan (Mahmoodzada), is the son of a servant in his household.

Racked with guilt after watching his servant/friend being sexually assaulted by three bullies and doing nothing to help, he eventually sets his poor friend up on a false accusation of theft that results in Hassan and his father leaving his family's employment. The resulting dire, unanticipated consequences are more heart wrenching than those concerning the young girls' false claims against James McAvoy in "Atonement."

Fleeing to America with his father following the Soviet invasion, Amir receives a call from an old friend in Afghanistan years later when he is married and a successful author. What he learns about the fate of his old childhood friend, and more particularly the circumstances surrounding the kidnapping of Hassan's young son by the Taliban, sets him out on a quest that will determine his character. Facing possible death, does he return to Afghanistan to try to save this young son of his old friend, or does he do the safe thing and simply do nothing as he did when he saw Hassan assaulted years earlier?

While the story of his return to a Taliban controlled Afghanistan unfolds somewhat too predictably, it nonetheless comes with a powerful emotional wallop. More than my own personal reaction, the audience around me was collectively genuinely moved.

Equally important, this story tells a tale that is relevant to society today. The story of immigrants coming to this country to forge a better life for their children should not be forgotten while we politically debate what to do with the millions of immigrants who are in our country "illegally." Before any of us cavalierly say that these poor people should forcibly be removed to their home country, I urge all of you to keep in mind the bond between "Kite's" father and son as they fled Afghanistan for the hope of a better future here in our country.

Additionally, "The Kite Runner" dramatically demonstrates the disastrous consequences of religion gaining control of a government. While freedom of religion is an essential requirement of a free society, the terror brought by the fanatical Taliban in Afghanistan was in many ways no different than the tyranny of Christianity in Spain and other parts of Western Europe during the Inquisition of the 14th and 15th Centuries. Freedom is inevitably threatened when a secular constitution is subverted to the goals of any religion, no matter what its denomination.

In the end, "The Kite Runner" provides a ray of hope for all humanity. As the adult Amir (played with understated passion by Khalid Abdalla) told his father-in-law after bringing his old friend's child back to America, he will no longer tolerate any discussion whereby kids from the Muslim world are referred to by any particular sect.

What he was saying was that once you reach America, you stop being Sunnis or Shiites and simply become Americans. What more powerful message can there be for today's troubled world given the ongoing sectarian strife in Iraq, Pakistan and Kenya?