In "The Year My Parents Went on Vacation," desperate times call for desperate measures and masquerades.

"Son, please understand, we're not going because we want to," the mother of 12-year-old Mauro (Michel Joelsas) says, as she leaves him on his grandfather's doorstep in 1970 Sao Paulo. His father promises to return for the World Cup, adding, "Now don't forget, we're on vacation."

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'The Year My Parents Went on Vacation'

3 stars = Good
Ratings explained

• Starring: Michel Joelsas, Germano Haiut
• Rating: PG for thematic material, mild language, brief suggestive content, some violence and smoking. In Portuguese, Yiddish and German with English subtitles.

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Mauro doesn't know two key things: His parents are left-wing militants who are going underground, and his grandfather has just died. Mauro falls under the reluctant care of an elderly Jewish neighbor (Germano Haiut) who works at a local synagogue and is told: "If God left the boy at your door, he surely knows what he's doing."

Writer-director Cao Hamburger manages to make his movie, in Portuguese, Yiddish and German with English subtitles, involving without being sappy, warm without being weepy. Set against World Cup fever and a crackdown on demonstrators in Brazil, this is a coming-of-age tale about a boy who learns about exile, sacrifice, friendship, flirtation and how to care for himself and others, along with victory and loss.

Opens today at the Manor.

-- Barbara Vancheri, Post-Gazette movie editor