In his novel Everything Is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer writes that Jews possess six senses: "Touch, taste, sight, smell, hearing... memory." Though much of the book's narrative complexity is lost in the film adaptation, written and directed by Liev Schreiber, this essential kernel -- that to sense the past is to illuminate our experience of the present -- is maintained, if slightly tooled-with. Like good brisket, Schreiber's Everything Is Illuminated is both dark and tender; it is a grave and stylishly comic search for meaning and forgiveness in a post-Holocaust landscape.
Elijah Wood, fashioned with a meticulous part in his hair, weird thick glasses and a black suit, plays a young American Jew conveniently named Jonathan Safran Foer who journeys to the Ukraine to find the woman who may or may not have saved his grandfather from the Nazis. Though it is his story, the show is stolen by the movie's narrator, Foer's Odessan translator and dramatic foil Alex, played by Eugene Hutz. Alex's Adidas tracksuit, faux-fly persona and adorably disfigured English -- he explains early on that "Many girls want to be carnal with me because I'm such a premium dancer" -- frame the story, so that Schreiber can maintain the focus on ostensibly serious motifs while always leaving the possibility of another laugh around the corner. Alex's grandfather (Boris Leskin) drives their Soviet-era vehicle and doses us with cootish old-world pronouncements, referring to Foer in Russian as "Jew" for most of the movie. Extra comic relief comes in the form of the grandfather's hyperactive dog named Sammy Davis Jr., Jr., after Grandfather's favorite American musician.
Together, the four drive through the Ukrainian countryside (the fantastic cinematography provides many of the movie's high points) in search of Foer's ancestral town of Trachimbrod. Their quest seems ill-fated: They run out of gas in the middle of nowhere, have trouble finding food for the unfortunately vegetarian Foer, and no one they meet has ever heard of Trachimbrod. But when Grandfather off-roads it down a dirt path, they find what they're looking for in a house surrounded by an endless field of sunflowers, the overwhelming beauty of the shot belying its dramatic improbability.
In the book, Jonathan Safran Foer is a young man on a quest for truth. In the movie, he's re-imagined as "the collector," a genealogically-minded, fanny pack-wearing quirkster who is constantly placing items of perceived significance into Ziploc bags. Cinematically, there's only so much you can do with a nearly 300-page novel whose narrative strands span decades and oceans; however, Schreiber's version of Foer, with his distracting getup and overplayed and underdeveloped neuroses, feels static and watered down. Hutz, on the other hand, is an onscreen pleasure, his timing flawless and mannerisms perfect. As such, unfortunately, the movie's humor works better than the drama. The true denouement does not come with Foer's "illumination," which is implied and at best hazily visualized, but rather with Alex's tragedy, which, like the sunflower fields, is a moment of unsettling visual perfection that also lacks something really substantial. That both Alex and his grandfather undergo significant character arc over the course of the film merely underscores Foer's failure in that department, which is a problem since he's the hero. Even the dog changes.
To parlay the wit and self-deprecation of Jonathan Safran Foer's fictional self-image onto the big screen would have been difficult to say the least. We want the character of Foer to give us something real; Instead, at the end of Schreiber's script we're left with a mash of raised yet unanswered questions, visual beauty and little else.
That said, the film is touching at points and humorous throughout, and is certainly a cut above most $9 crap out there. It's a pleasing moviegoing experience, but if you're in the market for illumination, you'll have better luck with the book.
Starring: Elijah Wood, Eugene Hutz
Director: Liev Schreiber
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 106 minutes
Playing at: The Charles Theatre
