martyrdom in life and redemption in death.

Lilya 4-Ever is a Job story in which the plagues assume the form of just about anyone the protagonist encounters. Tomboyish and spirited at the outset, Lilya (Oksana Akinshina) hates her ugly cinder block of a hometown--described as "somewhere in what was once the Soviet Union," but identifiable as Tallinn, Estonia--as passionately as do the kids in Moodysson's debut feature, the teen-lesbian love story Fucking Amal (unfortunately released in this country as Show Me Love). She's overjoyed to be moving to the States, but the happy anticipation is short-lived. Her mother leaves a screaming and crying Lilya behind. Her ogre of an aunt appropriates Lilya's home and dumps the girl in a revoltingly filthy apartment. Her best pal Natasha (Elina Benenson) turnsa trick at a dance club, then scapegoats Lilya when her dad discovers the money. Natasha reasons that it shouldn't matter to Lilya: "You don't have parents."

Lilya's only succor is melancholy Volodya (Artyom Bogucharsky), a younger, often homeless boy who likes basketball and sniffing glue. The red-diaper tots in Together liked to play "Pinochet"; Volodya likes to play dead, much to Lilya's dismay. He not only believes in heaven, he longs for it; although Lilya says the Lord's Prayer each day before a little painting of an angel holding a child's hand, the bulk of her faith lies elsewhere. "I'm not going to die," she says. "I'm going to America." Or Sweden: Her sad-eyed new boyfriend wants to take her there, get her a job "with vegetables--picking them