"Everything is Illuminated" (2005) - Movie Review

Past is something very much alive but still dead. It awakens the strange memories in all of us, reminding day in and day out that there is a constant search for reasons. The reasons for the actions and the result of which resulted in some more actions. The quest for finding the answers for those unanswerable past is something, “Everything is Illuminated” tries to. Liev Schrieber, known for his acting, stepped himself into the shoes of a director this time and adapted the very well acclaimed novel, “Everything is Illuminated”, written by Jonathan Safran Foer to the silver screen.

The journey of a young Jonathan Safran Foer played by Elijah Wood along with his tour guides Alex portrayed by Eugene Hutz and his grandfather acted by Boris Leskin with his interestingly creepy dog Sammy Davis Jr. Jr. (Yes, it is Jr. Jr), is what Liev Schrieber fills in this motion picture.

Viewers see a strange and quirky Jonathan collecting anything and everything he thinks as important which he fears he will forget. He learns that his grandfather was saved by a female in Ukraine during World War – II which makes him to travel and find the lady who gave his grandfather and himself a different life. Enters Alex with his broken but still musical English. He is the only way Jonathan can find and understand his very existence and the life he has because Alex is his translator. Alex’s supposedly “blind” grandfather gets interested by Jonathan’s search and serves as a driver along with his Dog. With these collage of characters, we see their road trip towards their past.

The movie has some extremely funny sequences and in particular, the Lunch (or dinner) scene, the three have. The scene is well placed, as it not alone serves as an Ice breaker for the three of those, but very well for the audience too. Spectacular style of execution in those five minutes of ultimate comical presentation. As all these series of events flow out, there is a serious thought process in all the three characters. Jonathan’s curiosity of meeting the person, Alex’s view towards the pre-war scenario and doubts on his mind regarding his involvement of his grandfather and his grandfather’s dark secret of his own. Once it starts, there are no comical instances but very secretive sensations and feelings run through the characters. Some lighter vein in further end would have made this movie some more appealing and of all, grab all the genre audiences.

There are moments in the movie suffering some sluggishness when things unfold but the timely narration comes as a nice solace to end this interesting journey.

Spellbinding locations and capturing the colours of those places is very impressive. As for screenplay, not a brilliant one, but pretty neat job for a movie in this genre. As for the acting department, the performances are very intense and composed from all the three main characters.

This is not a story wherein everyone can associate with the character. This is a story of three completely different characters sharing their common originality and their genesis. They find their existence due to their past. Some of those, they had control whereas some of them, they were not even there to control it. We cannot feel the exact pain what the people went through during those cruel wars but their past is all we have to learn from them. “Everything is Illuminated”, tries to illuminate those and show us the path towards our past.