The Birch, Fall 2005

The Weight of Whimsy
Intensely earnest, Liev Schreiber’s Everything is Illuminated fails to astound

Mark Krotov

In Liev Schreiber's Everything is Illuminated, any palpable sense of realism fades away minutes before the closing credits appear - which is too bad, because what bookends the overwrought emotionality of the last twenty minutes of the film is rather pleasing. The closing credits roll to the sounds of Gogol Bordello's "Stop Wearing Purple," a brilliant song that is a perfect piece of Russian-American-folk-punk. And while the preceding film does not match Gogol Bordello's ingenious fusion of cultures and styles, it aspires to something very similar.

The film is a quasi-adaptation of Jonathan Safran Foer's brilliant first novel, although one's enjoyment of the film relies heavily on an ability to completely disregard this piece of information. Despite its intentional lack of faithfulness to the book, the film retains the book's three main characters. Jonathan Safran Foer, played by an insipid Elijah Wood, is the awkward, man-child writer that comes to Ukraine to find Augustine, a woman who saved his grandfather during the Holocaust. Eugene Hutz, the lead singer of Gogol Bordello, plays Alex, Jonathan's translator, and Boris Leskin portrays Alex's grandfather.

The film is a road movie, in which Jonathan embarks on a journey through Ukraine with the linguistically- challenged Alex and the visuallyimpaired Grandfather (who happens to be the driver), and by the end, everyone has been taught something about the meaning of life, or friendship, or history. My cynicism arises only because, aside from the criminally misguided casting of Wood, who has no facial expressions, presence, or voice of any kind, the first part of the film is charming and fun and lacks the corny uplift of the final scenes. Hutz is a revelation as Alex. He brings his theatrical charisma to a part that requires him to be, alternatively, a Ukrainian b-boy, a deferential grandson, a wise sidekick, and a culture- shocked citizen (or victim) of a globalized world. The most charming aspect of Everything is Illuminated, however, is its use of locations. Although it was shot entirely in and around Prague, the similarity to Ukraine is undeniably visible. Schreiber is effective at pointing the camera at unappealing locales-abandoned factories, shabby apartment buildings-that nevertheless exude a quiet poetry.

The film also boasts a surprising amount of Russian dialogue. Since the grandfather does not speak English, Alex always speaks to him in Russian, which yields some amusing (and poorly subtitled) exchanges. In general, the film's strongest aspect is its immersion in its cultural environment. There is a great scene involving vegetarianism, a dirty floor, and a potato that effectively reveals both Schreiber's sensitivity to Russian peculiaritiesas well as his understanding of subtleties that can lead to major culture clashes. Unfortunately, this slightly wry outlook completely fades away as the movie desperately attempts to "illuminate." Instead, it collapses under the burden of its own whimsy, only to be rescued by Gogol Bordello in the closing credits. Ultimately, it is a shame that Schreiber could not have imbued the last moments with the realism of the first half, but in its quiet look at a distant culture, Everything is Illuminated succeeds.