Stolen Childhoods

Harrowing yet hopeful film.

A serious work of analysis, rooting the resistance to reform in Third World government corruption and Western profiteering.

So well-intentioned it almost renders critical examination frivolous.

Meryl Streep narrates this global update on child-labor abuses with all the enthusiasm and alarm of someone reading "The Pet Goat" to a classroom of second-graders.

It remains for a tougher documentary to more forcefully trace exactly who benefits from this shameful practice -- multinational corporations and consumers who don't ask enough questions.

Documentaries like Stolen Childhoods present an uncomfortable dilemma for anyone who cares how movies are made: They have virtually no aesthetic value, but compensate with unimpeachable social worth.

In its reliance on emotionally loaded voiceover and its disconcertingly direct appeals for support, Len Morris' old-fashioned docu seems more designed for fund-raising pitches than theatrical release.