Have you ever gone to a movie, not knowing what it's about or any other information except for the star of the movie?
That's how I felt when walking into Elijah Wood's newest film, Everything is Illuminated. Even after I viewed it, I couldn't pin point what kind of film genre I could place it in. It was a combination of a road picture, buddy flick, Holocaust picture, and it even had several hints of being a foreign picture from all of the beautiful scenery in Ukraine. Most movies that deal with many different issues such as Illuminated turn out to be a messy mess, but Illuminated was a joyful enjoyment.
After the Lord of the Rings hat trick and Sin City, I would have expected Elijah to be in every huge summer and winter blockbuster, but he still continues to choose scripts to movies that he likes no matter how big or small it was.
Elijah: "I loved the script. I never heard of the script. I loved the entire story. Liev (the director) came out to LA, and we spoke. He articulated the kind of movie he wanted to make. Choosing movies has more to do with reading scripts and falling in love with them."
In Illuminated, Elijah plays Jonathon Foer, who wears a Blues Brother's type suit, plus 7 magnified eyeglasses, and collects anything and everything that interests him, including a piece of potato that was one of his Ukrainian meals.
Even though Elijah, in real life, doesn't go as far as his character Jonathan, he does tend to collect things as well. Besides music memorabilia and Star Wars toys, his most prized valuable is a, "original 'Meet the Beatles' vinyl.'"
As Illuminated takes off, Jonathon goes searching into his Jewish ancestry by looking for information on his grandfather. Out of all of the artifacts Jonathon collected, he only has one photo that is on his grandfather's wall. When he arrives in Ukraine, he hires three guides: a hip-hop-wannabe American named Alex, Alex's not-so-blind grandfather, and his grandfather's "seeing-eye bitch." Together, they help Jonathon find his grandfather and the people that were important in his grandfather's life while dealing with their own family history too.
Just like how he developed a bond with his Lord of the Rings costars, Elijah made a new friendship with Eugene Hutz (Alex), and Eugene's band, which does a closing number when the credits role.
Whereas the characters in Illuminated try to be as colorful as they possibly can, the natural scenery behind steals the spot light away from them. There is a scene in particular where the three men meet a key woman that has the knowledge of Jonathon's grandfather, but all of the sunflowers around her beautiful cottage caused my mind to become distracted on paintings that I've seen from Van Gogh. Not having read the book myself, I believe that Liev Schreiber did the book justice and made an art piece and a good bullet to put on his resume.
I give Everything is Illuminated 4 out of 5 Roses
