Susan Granger’s review of “Everything Is Illuminated” (Warner Independent Pictures)
“Everything Is Illuminated” is a quiet, quirky, deeply compassionate view of hopes, dreams and the human comedy. Yet I suspect how much this W.W.II reminiscence will affect you emotionally may depend on your and/or your family’s involvement in the Holocaust.
Rigidly uptight Jonathan Safran Foer (Elijah Wood), an obsessive “collector,” is on a mission. Traveling to Ukraine, he’s determined to find the woman, identified only as Augustine, who may have saved his grandfather from the Nazis in 1942. As his guide, he hires loquacious, America-fixated Alex Perchov (musician/actor Eugene Hutz), whose grandfather (Boris Leskin) has driven many “rich Jewish people” around the Odessa area looking for their heritage, relatives and ancestral homes. Although he’s willing to search for the ‘lost’ village of Trachimbrod, grandfather refuses to travel without his growling ‘deranged’ dog, named Sammy Davis Jr. Jr., which causes several complications. Their raucous, picaresque journey becomes a soul-searching revelation.
Basing his screenplay on Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel which encompasses more than 200 years of history, actor Liev Schreiber makes an auspicious writing/directing debut although this absurdist film never achieves the scope, depth and power of the written word. Instead, Schreiber concentrates on his characters’ cultural communication in an effort to overcome language and customs barriers. Making the transition from “Lord of the Rings” hobbit, Elijah Wood embodies the awkwardly vulnerable, often confused young American traveler; behind thick glasses, his blue eyes are constantly observing. While on the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Everything Is Illuminated” is a touching yet fragmented 6, making you wish more had been “illuminated.”
