Va, vis et deviens would make a pretty good miniseries. Romanian-French director Radu Mihaileanu's ambitious coming-of-age fable is episodic and finally too eventful for its own good. But there is still plenty to admire. The film tells the story of Schlomo, an orphaned Ethiopian child passed off as a Falasha Jew during the exodus of the country's Jewish population in 1985. After arriving in Israel, Schlomo (played by three different actors as he moves from childhood to adolescence to adulthood) is adopted by a pair of hip, secular left-wingers (Yaël Abecassis and Roschdy Zem). They're faultlessly nice and well-dressed, but their affection for their new son does little to quell his burgeoning identity crisis, or the intolerant attitudes of their own countrymen.

Moshe Agazi, who plays Schlomo at age 9, contributes an intense, unmannered performance, and the scenes describing his culture shock are expertly directed. Once Schlomo hits puberty and develops a political consciousness, he becomes prone to making speeches about his feelings of dislocation and the film becomes bluntly didactic. The film speeds through its third act, offering regularly scheduled upheavals (college, war, marriage, fatherhood, homecoming) in lieu of the thoughtful character development that marked the superb early passages.