It's a weird film, but beneath its own weirdness, there's a spark of good-natured filmmaking. Everything's Illuminated might not be the kind of illumination you were looking for, but as a film, it gives off its own light.
Based on the true story of Jonathan Safran Foer, whom he had written the book with the same title also, Illuminated follows the story of a man in search for his family's roots. In order to reach out to his late grandfather's wife, he must embark on a journey to Ukraine, to fulfill the mission his grandfather had once asked him - to thank his grandmother for saving his life. Yet, with all the weirdness and some oddball kind of crap, it turns out that some little transformed into a life-changing journey towards awakening to what life is, and towards illumination on one's spirit.
As an audience in a film, it came to me that Everything's Illuminated presented such unusual characters, almost very imaginative, like an irony to the tale of truth. Jonathan Safran Foer looked a human beetle. He wears the same black suit over and over again with his one-sided hair slicked back with some greasy gel, and his eyes were magnified five times by his thick, magnifying-glass-like eyeglass lenses. The most amazing thing was, he was played by Elijah Wood, and did Mr Wood did any better? Yes, he very well did, in fact, this is one of the most challenging roles he ever tackled, after brandishing some Hobbit acts. Right now, after watching the film, I could never really think of any other actor playing the role of Jonathan Safran Foer. The film's filled with oddball characters too, like the angry dog, the blind grandpa, who's an expert in driving and Will, the tour guide. All in all, I quite enjoyed the film's weirdness, and Liev Schreiber, the director, his debut film actually, did good. He has many camera tricks and he knows about cinematography. Love the sunflower field scenes.
There are lessons we could learn in this film and right very well said, there are more lessons that the characters learned. There were many brilliant scenes, and the poignant background story about the Holocaust and the Jews made it more memorable.

Rating: B+