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Actors: Elijah Wood, Eugene Hutz
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| Review Summary and Plot Commentary about Everything is Illuminated |
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Jonathan Safran Foer (Elijah Wood) is an obsessive collector of his family memorabilia. He had created a special room in which he keeps each item zipped in a plastic bag and thumb tacked all over a wall for safe keeping. These preserved items include things like photos, glasses, cards, false teeth, handfuls of dirt, and many other items. “I don't want to forget,” he says. Now Jonathan plan to find the woman who saved the life of his grandfather during World War II. That woman of mystery lives in the Ukraine.
--Faiza Iqtidar, Resident Scholar
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Actor Liev Schreiber has directed his first film, Everything Is Illuminated, his big screen adaptation of Jonathan Safran Foer's eponymous novel is about a 20-something Jewish-American who goes to Russia to research his paternal grandfather's background. In particular, he wants to find out about a mysterious woman named Augustina who, according to family lore, saved his grandfather from the Nazis.
This young man, also named Jonathan Safran Foer, travels to Odessa, where he is picked up by a fly-by-night travel service, comprised of three individuals: an elderly driver who pretends he's blind; his rap-loving grandson Alex, who acts as Jonathan's interpreter but manages to consistently mangle the English language; and Grandpa's "seeing eye bitch," a mangy dog named Sammy David Junior Junior. This motley foursome journey to a remote area of the Ukraine, where they meet a woman who can reveal the past, and Jonathan discovers that his family's history is intertwined with that of Alex and his grandfather.
--Elana Starr, Resident Scholar
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| Analysis of Everything is Illuminated |
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Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot
Time/era of movie:
- present (2000-2010)
Inner struggle or disability
Yes
Struggle with
- search for family/history
War impact on civilians/veterans
Yes
Kind of conflict:
- holocaust
Main Character
Identity:
- Male
Profession/status:
- writer
Age:
- 20's-30's
Eccentric:
Yes
- obsessed
Is this an ordinary person caught up in events?
Yes
Hair color?
- brunette (Brown)
Hair type
- (man) short/standard straight
Body type
- (man) average
Events of movie makes character more...
- tougher
Ethnicity/Nationality
- Jewish
How sensitive is this character?
- sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor?
- Strong but gentle sense of humor
Intelligence
- Smarter than most other characters
Secondary Main Character
Identity:
- Male
Hair color
- brunette (Brown)
Hair style
- (man) short/standard straight
Body type
- (man) muscular
How much in movie?
- 80%
Ethnicity/Nationality
- Russian
Main Adversary
Identity:
- general circumstances
Setting
United States
Yes
City?
Yes
City:
- New York
- dirty, grimy (like New York)
Small town?
Yes
Misc setting
- bar
Style
Accounts of torture and death?
- explicit references to deaths
Movie makes you feel...
- thoughtful
Any profanity?
- Some foul language
If soundtrack VERY NOTICEABLE...
- Modern rock/pop
Is this movie based on a
- book
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Note: the views expressed here are only those of the reviewer(s). | |
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