Liev Schreiber is not particularly a good actor. It is now easy to confidently judge him as a bad director. It is quite There is very little about the movie that is not a dramatic or a visual cliché and/or a desperate move to gain the sympathy of the audience or some artistic recognition from critics. Eugene Hütz did a great job. So did Boris Leskin (the Ukrainian grandfather) as well as most of the supporting roles and the extras While the music is good and entertaining it has nothing to do with the point the films wants to deliver While cinematography is good, editing is excellent, the movie still lacks unity and coherence of mood and story telling

Jonathan Safran Foer (Elijah Wood) is a peculiar guy. He collects the most mundane everyday personal things. He is Jewish. After his grandfather's death, he goes to Ukraine in search of the ancestral home town of Trachimbrod. He hires an anti-semitic cranky old man and his American pop culture loving grandson Alex to guide him. Alex's translating ability is limited. History is long forgotten. Nobody has heard of the place he's looking for.Director Liev Schreiber is trying too hard to be quirky without actually achieving any laughs. It's weird for weird's sake. Schreiber doesn't have the necessary skills to make it fun. I sit there like Wood's character with his googly eyes staring unblinkingly. For the most part, the movie is a slow weird procession. Then the movie gets to the place and it achieves something poetic. I wonder if these characters are more real, would the story be more poignant? I think the story got a bit overwhelmed by the quirky mannerisms.

I have no idea why I didn't stumble upon this piece earlier. Probably because, holocaust movies, unless given the blessing of high budget (Schindler's List, The Pianist) tend to vanish in the vast variety of box office hit lists."Everything is Illuminated" is a very not-your-average-American-movie you could take it for. The story of a road trip of three totally contradicting characters on a search for the lost past, is told in an emotional way you can usually only find in Eastern European movies. If not for that, I wouldn't stop by to write these few words. But it makes a whole world of difference.Starting from the language, the clash between American and eastern European cultures, the funny twists of English words, which emphasize the differences way beyond a simple lick of the topic every tourist gets, the music, editing, smart camera and light use, and ending with the superb acting of the cast - it's all piling up to a very tasty feast. That's the first time I see a strictly American movie go beyond that kind of dull (by now) narration we are used to. Liev Schreiber mimics the style of Kusturica (but also, as I'm country-biased, those of early Polanski or Jan Jakub Kolski) in a perfect, yet innovative manner. Giving us not story, but a tale, something between dreams, rigid reality and foggy past, that is hard to forget.Elijah Wood as Jonathan, Eugene Hutz as Alex and Boris Lenski as grandfather together with their delusional but adorable blind eye bitch Sammy Davies Junior Junior give a wonderful concerto of performances. Also who ever made the research on locations, clothes, and gave the general taste of what's a deep East European countryside (similiar to what the movies tell us about deep American south) did a grand job. Spot on.I'm intentionally not telling you much about the story itself, the less I tell the more enjoyable to watch it should be. Just let me say that, everything is illuminated. Smile, laugh, be surprised, weep. Because that's life, you get a little bit of everything (if you're lucky). And about life, it is.

There are tons of things to quibble with in the film if you are familiar with Eastern European history and culture. The portrayal of Alex and his family is overly primitive and dysfunctional but part of that problem is due to the adaptation of the book where Alex winds up leaving. In the film, it appears that this behavior is normal and perpetuates the stereotype of the violent Eastern European family. Also, the behavior of the Ukrainians that they encounter on their road trip also are a bit one dimensional. The awkward lingo or grammar that the translator uses is a key element to the humor and insights of the film, but slightly off. A translator wouldn't use overly complex words to express himself when a simpler one in a dictionary would do, for instance.Finally, there's the necessary adaptation where the myth of the village that they are seeking is replaced with a more simplistic holocaust story. If you've seen Schindler's List or Sophies' Choice, you won't be terribly surprised.Now, all of that said, put together much like a bunch of common ingredients from your kitchen, it can come out surprisingly tasty. Elijah's acting is superb and his comic and dramatic timing impeccable. The scenery of Odessa and the Ukrainian countryside alone was worth the price of admission. Alex's style and attitude was a perfect example of a typical Odessa man. Even where I could quibble with a lot of the elements, the way everything tied in together at the end was touching. My wife started the film laughing her head off and sobbing at the end.Thing to look out for: The railway station where Jonathan is picked up, "Lviv Central", is NOT the railway station for Lviv. I know because I spent a lot of time there. They must have had a need to film somewhere else and put up the signage on another, less used, station. Also, it's rather strange that he would fly into Poland, presumably, and then take rail into Ukraine. It would have been a lot easier for him to just fly into either Kiev or Odessa directly. I suppose it was done to add an element of drama to the film rather than him going through the airport (although if you have flown into an airport in Ukraine, that has a lot of drama too!)