Word: jonathans
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...Jonathan (Elijah Wood) is a collector with a limited range and a deep, if enigmatically motivated, passion. What he saves is family memorabilia--his grandma's false teeth, a dollar bill, even dirt from ground that is somehow hallowed in family memory. All this stuff he seals in plastic Baggies and pins to a wall in his room. One of his most prized possessions is a photograph of his grandfather with a Ukrainian woman who, according to family legend, saved his life during World War II. In Everything Is Illuminated, Jonathan journeys to the Ukraine to discover her fate...
...early--and best--passages, writer- director Liev Schreiber's film, adapted from Jonathan Safran Foer's novel, is more comically daring than such a tale has any right to be. Jonathan--always dressed in a dark suit and tie, peering at the world through thick glasses and expecting to find vegetarian cuisine in the depths of a country where sausage appears to be the national dish--is not entirely prepared for the ministrations of his tour guides. They operate a grandly named organization called Heritage Tours, which consists of a dubious car and eccentric employees: Alex (Eugene Hutz), who says...
What they're searching for is the shtetl from which Jonathan's grandfather escaped, and it becomes increasingly clear that it was wiped out a half-century earlier by the Nazis. They find, at last, one survivor, Lista (Laryssa Lauret), who is also a collector but on a grander scale than Jonathan can imagine. Her aim is to keep alive the memory of the entire wiped-out village by hoarding its detritus. There is, as it turns out, one other survivor, whose identity should probably not be revealed here. Alas, the tragic dimensions of Everything Is Illuminated do not quite...
...other hand, Schreiber's film represents a bold attempt to integrate the themes of increasingly lost memories and the forgetful, distracted modern mind. That means the obsessive Jonathan has a more important historical role to play than he perhaps imagines. It also means that this often vivid movie, though it doesn't quite attain its highest intentions, is well worth seeing. And thinking about. --By Richard Schickel
PLAYERS TO WATCH QB Brad Maurer (Jr.), RB Jonathan Hurt (Jr.), WR Brandon Stanford (Sr.), T Drew Buettner (Sr.), C Robert Stroble (Sr.), DL Marvin Snipes (Jr.), LB Maurice Bennett (Sr.), LB Andrew Brown (Sr.), CB Larry Johnson...