This thunderous wallop of a movie is from Lebanon and filmed in the broken, devastated slums where main character Zain lives. He’s about 12 years old and is so adorable you will want to adopt him and get him out of those horrible living conditions. The film won the Grand Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival and is considered an Oscar® contender.

Zain was born into a large, dysfunctional family with many children and parents who don’t really know how to cope with all the kids and their abject poverty. Zain is a smart little nipper and wise beyond his years. He can see what a mess his parents are and why he feels they are responsible for their miserable life in the hovel where they live.

The film begins when Zain gets put in jail for stabbing someone. Zain is also suing his parents for “giving him life!” The judge (a real-life retired Lebanese jurist Elias Khoury) is somewhat sympathetic. Director and sometimes actress Nadine Ladaki plays Zain’s lawyer Nadine. We have the feeling that Zain will survive.

When Zain’s parents sell his favorite little 11 year-old sister Sahar (moppet actress Haita Cedra Izzam) to the landlord’s son for marriage, Zain snaps and runs away. He has to use his street smarts to survive. He surfaces at a ram-shackle old amusement park where he meets Ethiopian illegal refugee Rahil, a young woman with a little toddler son named Jonas (Boluwatife Treasure Bankole). Rahil survives by working illegally as a cleaning lady and lets Zain look after her son during the day. Although there is a great disparity in their ages, the two boys bond and become great friends. Zain lashes up a makeshift skateboard and large cooking pot into which he deposits Jonas as they make their way through the squalor of the city slums. Zain is comical as he braves all the obstacles of trying to survive being totally poverty-stricken. But he must use his wiles to wangle deals and trades.

This is a heart-breaking film -- and tears will come to your eyes when you realize how many children in the world must exist in total poverty and filth in the slums where they live. Capernaum is particularly wrenching because Zain appears so loveable, funny and beautiful with large expressive eyes that dig right into the middle of your heart.

This most powerful film of many years is not pretty, fun or cheerful. But I think it’s imperative for everyone to see Capernaum. Maybe it will startle all of us enough to acknowledge our own blessings.

(Released by Sony Pictures Classics and rated “R” for language and some drug material.)