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Based on the novel by Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything is Illuminated stars Elijah Wood (Lord of the Rings) as Jonathan Safran Foer, a young Jewish man who wants to learn how his grandfather escaped from the Nazi incursions into Russia. From the U.S., he hires the hip-hop loving Alex (Eugene Hutz, leader of the gypsy-punk band Gogol Bordello) and his surly grandfather (Boris Leskin, Men in Black) as tour guides--only to discover, when he arrives in Odessa, that they are perhaps less than dependable. Thus begins a curious, almost metaphysical road trip that carries Foer into the past of his grandfather's village and the present o
Based on the novel by Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything is Illuminated stars Elijah Wood (Lord of the Rings) as Jonathan Safran Foer, a young Jewish man who wants to learn how his grandfather escaped from the Nazi incursions into Russia. From the U.S., he hires the hip-hop loving Alex (Eugene Hutz, leader of the gypsy-punk band Gogol Bordello) and his surly grandfather (Boris Leskin, Men in Black) as tour guides--only to discover, when he arrives in Odessa, that they are perhaps less than dependable. Thus begins a curious, almost metaphysical road trip that carries Foer into the past of his grandfather's village and the present of his own compulsive habits. Adapted and directed by Liev Schreiber (best known as an actor in The Daytrippers and The Manchurian Candidate), Everything is Illuminated buckles a little under its literary weight--what seems deft and resonant in the middle of several hundred pages can feel forced and overstated in a two-hour movie--but it's also full of delightful dialogue, vivid characters, and oddball yet affecting scenes. Wood is his usual charming and neurotic self, but Hutz steals the show with the help of his wonderfully fractured English and his soulful eyes. --Bret Fetzer
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