Starring Cat Ly, The Lu Le, and Han Thi Pham. In Vietnamese with English subtitles. Rated G. Opens Friday, March 13, at the Cinemark Tinseltown

This is a very good week for jaded theatregoers to discover that they can still be touched by movies. Both The Necessities of Life and this heart-lifting, multiple award–winning gem from Vietnam blend just the right amounts of realism and artistic fancy to take you far into worlds that would otherwise remain unknown. Audiences will feel grateful for, and perhaps even changed by, the experiences.

Where the Canadian Necessities is a cool period piece with Arctic undertones, Owl and the Sparrow is set in today’s Saigon, a place of such high-temperature bustle and swirling colours that it could easily swallow a 10-year-old girl with escape on her mind. That’s the case for Thuy (adorably precocious newcomer Han Thi Pham), an orphan who flees her uncle’s rural sweatshop for a start in the big city.

Instead of hitting the usual Dickensian nightmare, Thuy encounters street kids who are tough but helpful, and she has a lot to offer the adults who enter her orbit. Chief among these are Lan (Journey From the Fall star Cat Ly), an elegant flight attendant stuck in a part-time relationship, and Hai (The Buffalo Boy’s The Lu Le), a soulful young zookeeper who overidentifies with an elephant he raised from a baby.

Despite the title, writer-director Stephane Gauger—a Vietnamese-American—doesn’t overtax the animal metaphors. And he doesn’t strive for gritty drama, either. His hand-held camera, supported by spare guitar music, simply lets Saigon’s sights, sounds, and smaller conflicts unfold—usually with scooters involved.

The main characters, with their barely sketched-in backgrounds, are more love-seeking participants in a modern folk fable than emblems of any social disorder. If they are destined to form a family of their own choosing, only the most committed cynic will resist cheering them on.