Everything Is Illuminated - movie reviews and information

'Everything Is Illuminated': Wrong director, wrong material
by Eleanor Ringel Gillespie

Everything is not merely illuminated in the new film, "Everything is Illuminated." It's beamed out with all the subtlety of a klieg light. Based on Jonathan Safran Foer's novel of the same name, the movie both tries too hard and not hard enough. Early comic sequences are grossly overdone while wondrous moments in which the past takes primacy over the present aren't fully explored. Read the full review

TO SUM UP
The story of a young man's quest to find the woman who saved his grandfather in a small Ukrainian town that was wiped off the map by the Nazi invasion. The journey yields a powerful series of revelations on remembrance, the perilous nature of secrets, the legacy of the Holocaust, the meaning of friendship and, most importantly, love.

FILM FACTS ...

Warner Independent Pictures

'Everything Is Illuminated'

Director: Liev Schreiber
Starring: Elijah Wood, Eugene Hutz, Boris Leskin, Laryssa Lauret
Run time: 100 minutes
Release date: Sept. 16, 2005
Rating: PG-13 for disturbing images/violence, sexual content and language.
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On the web
Official movie site
View the trailer
Trailers require Quicktime

READ THE REVIEW

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: C
"It's easy to applaud (director Liev) Schreiber for his sincerity, his commitment, his intelligence, his compassion. But his movie can be embarrassing."

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Austin American-Statesman: 3 of 5 stars
"Schreiber never loses sight of the human emotions that made him care about this story in the first place."

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The Palm Beach Post: A-
"Wood, so associated with the burden of the world in Lord of the Rings, gives a weightier performance here, though one with wryly comic edges surrounding a tragic core."