NAZANIN BONIADI, RUHL PAL, AND JAKE LACY IN A MOSQUITO IN THE EAR TRAILERAdoption woesThis is another movie about the difficulties of adoption. I last reported on Alessandro Cassigoli and Casey Kaufman's
Vittoria (N.I.C. 2024), in which family members, disquietingly, are playing themselves and there is a lot of confusion on the part of the adopting family members, wno weren't sure this was a good idea to begin with. The would-be "mom" did this on impulse.
Adoption is always complicated, difficult, and expensive. (Word is it's a great deal less possible to adopt from abroad for Americans now than it was in 2024.) By coincidence this is another Italian story, only it has been adapted to English and an American couple. They are both artists. This comes from a graphic novel
Una Zanzara nell'orecchio (same title) by Andrea Ferraris, recounting his and his wife's own experience. According to an online article in
Doppiazero by Peter Scarnera, the original novel starts with the six long years between the couple's decision to adopt and their coming for the child in India. The film skips all that and begins with Andrew (Jake Lacy) and Daniela (Nazanin Boniadi) arriving in Goa.
Frankly I picked this film because I liked Jake Lacy so much as the privileged, spoiled asshole in Season 1 of
The White Lotus.. He plays Shane Patton, a wealthy, entitled, and newlywed real estate agent who spends nearly his entire honeymoon in Hawaii constantly bickering with the resort staff over his room reservation. Well, Lacy is good at not whitewashing his characters. His Andrew is often frustrated and unsatisfied and not pretending he isn't. Lacy has a knack for seeming real. Being a man, I don't agree with Daniela when she says in anger that Andrew is a second child she's having to cope with in the Goa adoption process. He isn't being a child, he's just being honest with his feelings. In a way both adoptive parents are children because they're childless and never did this before. Andrew (and frankly, we) must contend with Daniela's tendency to play the cloying Madonna at times, staging adorable cameos with herself and the girl. The girl likes that, but also likes Andrew when he gives her stuff. This includes a stuffed striped tiger he buys for her that becomes her comfort doll and an emotional connection. She's just scared of him, says Sister Aruna, because there are no men at the orphanage. That's not totally true because there's the crazy bearded Driver Pio (Dhaniram), and the Indian, Hindi-speaking male doctor who gives Sarvari a big jab with a needle when she gets a stomach infection that she accepts without a qualm.
In the child department Jake is extravagantly outdone by Ruhi Pal as four-year-old Sarvari, who is a holy terror. Being feted and gifted and entertained by Andrew and Daniela is fine with her, but she starts to scream and chew glass when it seems like they're going to take her away from the orphanage, which has been her only home. We can imagine a Dickensian tale where the orphanage is evil and the child can't wait to be removed from it, but the reality is that most children adopted from orphanages find leaving them a wrenching experience. Actual photos from the adoption suggest the orphanage was a happy place. The child in the Italian adoption film
Vittoria, cannot speak, also everyone speaks an impenetrable dialect of Italian. Here, Sarvari does not speak English and Andrew and Daniela don't know a word of Hindi. Didn't they have time to learn a few Hindi phrases? Language always helps. But the little girl is just a holy terror when she feels threatened. The little Ruhi Pal's physical performance is convincing, and substantially contributes to the movie's slightly anguished tone. The filmmakers do a convincing job of producing a chaotic sequence in a crowded market at night that leads to resolution.
It's surprising that when Sarvari opposes them, Andrew and Daniela (both spoiled Americans?) initially find ways to delay their departure, bringing the girl back and forth between a restaurant where she will eat only ketchup and their hotel room where she cuddles and sleeps and the orphanage, where Sister Aruni is still available, but severe in refusing to delay this waiting game further. She is right that delaying will only make the process harder for everyone but she is also self-contradictory, first saying the girl knows nothing and can't possibly understand what's happening, then saying while girls cry because they don't understand, she cries because she "understands everything." Make up your mind, Sister. But these delays and the tantrums are the heart of the film. They're what show us this is an agonizing process, and that "family" means different things. It's also an important point made several times that Sarvari needs to get a chance to remember India in the future. How can you forget a place like that? But if you go to California at the age of four, you might.
Hundreds of graphic novels have now been made into films and of course each medium has its strengths. I think of the Oscar-nominated
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi (who died, too young, in Paris last month), a famous memoir of coming of age in Tehran during and after the revolution of 1979 made into a memorable movie. The 2007 film
Persepolis is an animation hand-drawn by Satrapi and filmed in collaboration with her Paris studio-mate and Vincent Paronnaud. Obviously, a graphic novel can achieve a degree of scope only a blockbuster budget could duplicate on film. But a film achieves a realism and intimacy drawings lack.
Mosquito in the Ear (the phrase used by the girl for what hearing English is like to her) is painful to watch. I guess adopting a child is like what they say about having one: nothing prepares you for it.
A Mosquito in the Ear, 9o mins., the director's first feature, in English and Hindi, premiered at Santa Barbara as its opening night film Feb. 4, 2026, showing also at Bari, Annapolis, Miami, Dallas, Berkshire, Brooklyn and Nantucket. Limited US theatrical release Jun. 19, 2026. Available digitally Jul. 23, 2026.
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