EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED looks great. It sounds great. It tackles serious issues with whimsy and heart. But it lacks that certain something that takes a picture from good to excellent.
Elijah Wood plays Jonathan Safran “Quirky” Foer (OK, I don’t know if quirky is the character’s actual middle name, but it should be.), a Jewish guy from New York who travels to Ukraine to connect with his family’s past. He meets various quirky characters, some of whom reveal hidden dimensions and some of whom do not. The movie milks cultural dissonance and fractured English for laughs in its early stages, then gradually transitions to poignancy and, perhaps, tragedy toward the end. Problem is, it never transitions away from quirkiness, and that quirkiness draws so much attention to itself that I found myself focusing more on it than on the film’s revelations.
Nevertheless, EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED is a noble and ambitious picture. It neither touched my heart nor blew my mind, but it did take me to new places and introduce me to new people, all while keeping me only minimally aware of time. I give it three out of five sunflowers.
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