While not a story that everyone will immediately grasp unto and be interested, Everything is Illuminated is a story that depicts the search for a piece of history that is dear to a young Jewish man from America, Jonathan Safran Foer (played by Elijah Wood).
While it tends to muddle around a bit and focuses on the stranger aspects of its characters, Everything is Illuminated winds its way towards its poignant ending with a sometimes somber, sometimes comical story in a voice that is still, somehow consistent and true.
This film gives you glimpses of what it means to make a great film and then, as if unwilling to stay in that place, it retreats towards common directorial tools as silence, close-ups, and confusion. This all added up to a small sense of dissatisfaction for me, not unlike the feeling I have leaving a fancy restaurant where I just ate some really great food, but didn't get enough to stop me from looking for the next meal right away afterwards.
