Posted: 09/02/2005

Everything Is Illuminated

(2005)

by Aaron Riccio

There’s a famous saying in theater that goes, “If you really want to achieve greatness, you have to love every moment of what you’re doing.”

Liev Schreiber, the actor turned writer-director, is no stranger to theater, so it’s assured he’s heard that old salt before. When Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel Everything is Illuminated was first released, Schreiber pounced on the rights and immediately started writing a screenplay. Like a chicken protecting its egg, he sat on the script, developing and casting as he saw best fit, and it worked: his adaptation maintains the humorous eccentricities of the novel, and for the most part, his casting and cinematography is spot on.

The film chronicles a “rigid search” conducted by Jonathan Safran Foer (Elijah Wood) to find a mysterious woman who may have saved his grandfather from a Nazi execution, but that’s really just an excuse to visit the Ukraine. There, we are quickly introduced (through a succinct montage) to the scene-stealing center of the film, Alex (Eugene Hutz) and his family. Alex works as a translator for his family’s business, Heritage Tours, an ironic business considering the callous anti-Semitism of his grandfather (Boris Leskin). The irony is even more tongue-in-cheek when we are made to understand that his grandfather, who claims to be blind (though this is just a metaphor), is the driver, along with Sammy Davis Jr. Jr. (an affectionate name for their “seeing-eye bitch”).

These three provide the true grit and substance of the film; Elijah Wood seems quite vacant, more distant from his character than his character is from reality. In any case, Hutz more than compensates for Wood’s poor turn as a straight man: his English has been cannibalized secondhand from ghettoized hip-hop culture and his constant use of awkward synonyms (“carnal” or “proximal” for example) make for entertaining dialogue. At the same time, he’s so insecurely suave; it’s hard to stop watching him.

Schreiber balances Alex’s charisma with the beauty of the land, vividly capturing a true sense of being lost in translation as he shoots the scenic and constantly picturesque land. Accented by an entirely Ukrainian soundtrack, the audience is given a real taste of cultural dislocation. At times, Schreiber is perhaps a little too excited by these visually orgiastic shots and loses the narrative’s momentum, but we’re more than fine idling momentarily, so long as we’re provided more witty and poignant banter.

However, by the final fourth of the film, Schreiber loses control, and at moments, it seems as if Tim Burton has taken over. They find a house surrounded by giant dandelions and all the actors walk as if trapped in the molasses of dreams, all the laughter has long since died away, and we deal with the serious and inescapable power of the Holocaust. Through flashbacks that seem wholly unnecessary and the deadening of colors used in the film’s palette, we are forced to sit and grimly bear it. Part of the charm of Foer’s novel was always being between laughter and tears, so this deadening mood is a moment where the puppeteer’s strings are all too apparent.

Perhaps that’s a necessary evil when adapting a book that prides itself on being non-linear and often tangential. Schreiber is wise to have cut the hilarious historical sections of the book (they’d be far too distracting); he’s just a little too heavy-handed. For what it’s worth, it’s still an effective juxtaposition of the real and fantastical.

Everything is Illuminated is an ambitious book; Schreiber, just as ambitious and loving in his adaptation, has succeeded in making an understandable yet secretive film. The idiosyncrasies of culture tie neatly together to show their underlying similarities, and in the end, all is illuminated under the focused light of the past. We can walk out of the movie theater feeling accomplished. We can smile again, we can cry again: life goes on.

Aaron Riccio is film critic in New York City.

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