Since his role as Frodo Baggins in "Lord of the Rings," Elijah Wood has grown three feet for Liev Schreiber's new film "Everything Is Illuminated."
Woods also seems to have grown as an actor. His performance as Jonathan, a psychologically complex Jewish-American man, proves to be much more of a feat than Wood's previous role as savior of Middle Earth.
Musician Eugene Hutz of Gogol Bordello plays Alex, the break-dancing, gold-toothed Ukrainian translator who is forced to his aid foul-mouthed grandfather in driving the paranoid Jonathan across the Ukraine in search of the woman who saved Jonathan's grandfather (Stepan Samudovsky) from the Nazis.
If that weren't enough, Jonathan is an American, Alex wants to be an American, and Sammy Sosa Jr., the grandfather's seeing-eye dog, is deranged.
During the joyride, Alex's curiosity gets the best of him and abruptly asks Jonathan if he is carnal very often.
"I'm not exactly a priest, but I'm not exactly John Holmes either," Jonathan replies.
Alex proceeds to settle the difference between America and Ukraine by admitting, "everyone in the Ukraine has a penis like John Holmes."
The misunderstanding between cultures manages to snag a few cheap laughs. Alex mangles the English language in order to provide Jonathan with a faulty but well-intentioned translation of his grandfather's grumbling, but the plot undergoes a tragic turn when the grandfather becomes a bleeding heart.
Liev Schreiber, who played Raymond Shaw in the remake of "The Manchurian Candidate," makes his directorial debut in "Everything is Illuminated." He bravely approaches Jonathan Safran Foer's novel by the same name, a book complicated by shifting narratives, plot subtleties and thematic crises. This screen adaptation would be an ambitious attempt for anyone.
Unfortunately, the adaptation of a good book is almost always inadequate. Littered with adjustable language barriers, endearing stereotypes and zany characters, the book outfits Schreiber with more humor than he knows what to do with.
"Everything is Illuminated" is not a bad movie, but the characters, plot and dialogue were meant for the page, not the screen.
The movie has bipolar personality disorder, rushing into comedy and then turning drastically to sentimentality. It begins with a frozen-action narrative, similar to that of Guy Ritchie's "Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels," as Alex gets punched in the face at the dinner table.
This sets the stage for a trendy display of antics, but by completion, the movie has accumulated flashbacks of carnage, poignant revelations and a suicide.
A striking line in the book, which is not heard in the movie, is almost necessary to understand why the character commits suicide:
"The only thing more painful than being an active forgetter is to be an inert rememberer."
In moments of melancholic illumination, laughing during the beginning of the movie almost feels regrettable.
Alex concludes that "everything is illuminated in the past, on the inside looking out."
Despite the book's convolution, Schreiber manages to unscramble its plot. Creating distinct images and sounds that complement Jonathan Safran Foer's intention, Schreiber and Foer obviously worked closely together. After all, the author appears in Schreiber's movie as a leaf-blower in the cemetery.
If you're looking for a little more thwack for your ducats, spend those seven dollars on a used book from amazon.com instead of a movie ticket. But if you crave the screen version, it's playing at the Dipson North Park Theatre on Hertel Avenue.
Photo: Courtesy of Matthew Messina, from the RMBERS' Instagram page
