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Wednesday, 30 November 2005 08:36 |
| Meg Hale
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I am so proud of Liev Schreiber! He is this great, little-known actor ?±?± little-known because the films in which he is great are the ones that nobody sees.
For instance, he was amazing playing legendary director Orson Welles in the 1999 film ?®RKO 281.?∆ Critics began taking notice of him when he played Raymond Shaw in the 2004 Denzel Washington remake of the classic thriller ?®The Manchurian Candidate.?∆
Now, Schreiber is trying his hand at screenwriting, as well as directing, for the recently released ?®Everything is Illuminated,?∆ which I viewed recently at the Fine Arts Theatre. The film, which is no longer showing locally, is based on the novel of the same name, written by the film??s lead character Jonathan Safran Foer. Foer (played by Elijah Wood) is a young Jewish man and collector of family heirlooms. He is a bit more eccentric than most collectors, collecting everything from a pocket-watch, to a pair of dentures, to a slice of cooked potato.
In his collections, Foer comes across a pendant and a photograph of his
grandfather (in his youth) with a young girl. Before her death, Foer??s
grandmother tells him that the girl in the picture was responsible for
his grandfather??s escape to America during World War II. This prompts
Foer to go on a journey to find her in the Ukraine.
The people whom Foer meets and enlists to help him on his journey are
just as peculiar and interesting as he is. Alex (played by Eugene Hutz)
is his tour guide on the trip and also serves as the narrator of the
story. He is full of great quotes that are not-quite-correctly
translated into English, such as ?®All the ladies are wanting to get
carnal with me because of my premium dance moves.?∆ The two are driven
across the small towns of the Ukraine by Alex??s blind uncle and his
seeing-eye-(dog), Sammy Davis Jr. Jr.
The plot is most unique, with characters to match. This is no small
accomplishment in the movie-world today. On the other hand, the
majority of the movie is three men and a dog in a car driving across
the Ukraine. As proud as I am of Schreiber, the movie is a little slow
at times.
Of course, when the three (and the dog) learn the true story of what
happened to Foer??s grandfather and the girl, it is overwhelmingly
moving and awfully sad. Then, the men??s reaction to it is just as
powerful, especially the grandfather??s. I am not exactly sure why the
grandfather reacts the way that he does, however. I feel like the
film goes to great lengths to explain, but the motive still does not quite come across.
The thing about a journey, especially one that culminates in a sad
story, is that it has to end with some new-found treasure that the
journeyman did not have prior to the trip. Other than knowledge of a
horrific experience, I do not know with what Foer comes out of the
experience. It also seems like Schreiber might not have been sure
either, because right after the climactic moment of the plot, the men
kind of say ?®goodbye?∆ and head off in their separate directions. I
found it a little disheartening, as if all the effort was for naught.
What I loved about the movie was the metaphor in which it was
surrounded. Alex explains that life is like a road trip: always
ongoing, without the certainty that you are headed in the right
direction. Your past is what is happening off to the sides of your
vehicle, some of which you see and some you miss, but they are all part
of the trip. ?®Everything is Illuminated?∆ ends with Foer passing, in an
airport, all of the people he met along his trip, symbolic of the
repeating nature of existence. That was my favorite part of the movie
?±?± the depth of it in general.
I do have to mention this, however. Part of what Foer gets at the end
of the movie (along with the information about his grandfather) is a
ring. If the circumstances under which he (Elijah Wood) received the
ring had been any less moving, I am just certain that the theatre would
have echoed with whispers of ?®precious.?∆
The film, though it drags at times, is absolutely worth the watch. I give it four of my six planets.
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