\Everything is Illuminated,"" based on the novel by Jonathan Safran Foers, is a Russian doll of a film-a Holocaust drama inside of a road trip movie that is wrapped in a buddy- comedy, with a layer of magical realism. Marking the ambitious (if flawed) directorial debut of Liev Schreiber, the film examines the way cultures divide us and history unites us, and more often then not, it succeeds.
Elijah Wood plays Jonathan, a ""collector"" who obsessively catalogues family artifacts, placing everything from yellowed photos to his grandmother's dentures in plastic baggies which he then pins to his wall. ""Sometimes I'm afraid I'll forget,"" he explains, the great irony being that as a second-generation Jewish-American, he struggles above all to remember something he never lived-the Holocaust.
Prompted by his grandmother's deathbed confessional, Jonathan sets out to Ukraine in hopes of finding Augustine, the woman who saved his grandfather from the Nazis. He enlists the help of the dubiously anti-Semitic ""Heritage Tours,"" a family business that specializes in ""aiding rich Jewish people in search of their dead families.""
Once there, Jonathan meets his translator, Alex (Eugene Hutz), an amalgam of American hip-hop clich??s, whose broken English and malapropisms provide much of the film's humor. Along with their driver, Alex's grandfather, who believes he's blind and insists upon bringing his ""seeing eye bitch,"" Sammy Davis Junior Jr., they set out on a trip through the beautiful Ukrainian countryside in search of Trachimbrod, the former village of Jonathan's grandfather.
The film is at its best when examining the interplay between Jonathan and Alex, whose struggles to connect run deeper than the language that divides them. In a scene at a country inn, Alex incredulously grills Jonathan about his vegetarianism.
""No pork? No chicken? No sausage?"" he inquires, to which an exasperated Jonathan replies, ""No meat!"" Refusing to accept this, Alex asks, ""What is wrong with you?""
Interestingly, the miscommunication between the two leads occurs because each represents a caricature of the other's culture. Alex dresses in gold chains and a red Kangol pantsuit, idolizes Michael Jackson and spends his time frequenting the clubs where, as he explains, many women want to be ""carnal"" with him.
Jonathan, on the other hand, appears pre-Glasnost-quiet, unassuming, and habitually clad in thick glasses and a black suit. It is only after the film's climax, the moment of ""illumination,"" that the two discover they have much more in common than they think.
At times, the film's visuals get in the way of the story, becoming irritatingly quirky in a manner reminiscent of ""Garden State."" For instance, Alex's bed wraps around a pillar which juts out from the wall, and there is the field of a thousand perfectly manicured sunflowers that surround a small country shack.
Watching the film, one feels as though the energy devoted to dynamic visuals could have been better spent creating multi-layered characters. Despite a degree of poignancy when the film reaches its climax, it feels as though it would have been more emotional if one cared more for the characters.
Nevertheless, the film's flaws are forgivable, and the obvious love and enthusiasm with which Schreiber approaches his source material is always present. In the opening voice-over, Jonathan explains, ""I was of the opinion that the past is the past."" The film suggests things are never as simple as this line-despite humanity's attempts to move forward, it must also realize what it loses.
