Everything Is Illuminated (2005)

3/28/06

Based on Jonathan Safran Foer's much praised novel and directed by actor Liev Schreiber, Everything Is Illuminated stars Elijah Wood as a young American Jew searching the Ukraine for the women who saved his grandfathers life during World War II. While American cinema is heavy on holocaust remembrances and sentimental searches for family origins, I don't know if this kind of story has ever been attempted as a sort of quirky comedy-drama. Light in the first hour the movie becomes very serious there after and frankly ends on a disturbing note. Everything Is Illuminated comes across as an awkward translation of what was probably a good book.