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Reviewed by Elliot V. Kotek
(June 2011, screening at the 2011 Los Angeles Film Festival)

Directed by: Linda Goldstein Knowlton
Featuring: Jenna Cook, Haley Butler, Ann Boccuti, Fang “Jenni” Lee, Run Yi Holle and Jeannie Butler

When groups of parents-to-be descend on a Chinese adoption center in Changsha, China, at center frame is an American couple “receiving” their 10-month-old infant Ruby.

Welcome to the filmmaker/mom’s new world.

For three years prior to welcoming Ruby into her family, Linda Goldstein Knowlton filmed four teenagers across the U.S. to find out how to imbue a sense of belonging, and a sense of heritage and past, to the Chinese baby she was about to adopt.

A few years ago, “The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins” delved into celebrity adoption, following a well-known artist as she descended on Africa and attempted to “rescue” a set of twins from their father and bring them to the U.S. And every other week we see images ofAngelina Jolie and Brad Pitt or Madonna and the multinational broods they’ve adopted from the corners of the earth.

But Goldstein Knowlton leads us down another pathway entirely, logically following China’s one-child policy through to the hundreds of thousands of baby girls discarded into the adoption system and the effect of that system on a few very real people who’ve been adopted into U.S. families, and American culture, across the country.

The girls that Goldstein Knowlton visits in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Tennessee and California each seem blessed with a loving family, a healthy passion for life and positive outlook on adoption. And that is, perhaps, the only problem inherent in this documentary — that it tracks the process when it’s had an outcome that’s worked. It would have provided an interesting dynamic had Goldstein Knowlton found less successful cases with which to contrast her core group of subjects.

“Somewhere Between” follows the adopted girls as they unite through groups such as Global Girls set up specifically for their social interaction, a support group of sorts with whom some of the girls search for their birth stories.

Despite whatever abandonment issues the children might address, and despite any sense that they were ever viewed as a mistake, Goldstein Knowlton has found a group of girls (and adoptive parents) with an indelible strength, including the strength to share honestly about their struggles and successes. “Somewhere Between” is overflowing with warmth and acceptance, its positivity a tear-inducing respite from the many gut-wrenching exposés inherent in the documentary landscape.

Educational in substance, and bearing tender emotional resonance, “Somewhere Between” will no doubt provide valuable insight to many currently experiencing or contemplating cross-border adoption.

Photo courtesy Los Angeles Film Festival