"Everything Is Illuminated": A pure and brilliant lesson

Tomorrow, go stand in front of a gravestone.

Maybe then the message behind Liev Schreiber's film "Everything Is Illuminated," based upon the best-selling novel of the same name by Jonathan Safran Foer, will be a bit clearer. And if not, spend the $9.25 to see the film again — and again, and again, because every cent paid for cinema of this caliber is one more step on the path to illumination.

For "Illuminated" is much more than its simple plot; it extends beyond the boundaries of the screen and reaches into the hearts and the memories of the audience. Jonathan Safran Foer's (Elijah Wood) trip to Ukraine to unearth the story of his Jewish family's fate at the hands of Nazis resonates with the universal human longing to feel a sense of connection to those who came before. Foer makes his journey into the past accompanied by his Ukrainian translator Alex (Eugene Hutz) and Alex's grandfather (Boris Leskin), whose stories unravel alongside Foer's family's.

At first, the plot reads like yet another introspective, reflective drama on the Holocaust, but it is much more than that. Schreiber crafts "Illuminated" into a film of endless dimensions, shifting seamlessly between the realms of comedy and tragedy. The balance is exquisite: at one end sits the extroverted Alex, whose off-beat malapropisms of the English language elicit laughter at every turn (he's continually boasting of how many girls he has been "carnal" with), and at the other sits the delicate, sensitive and ultimately tragic fate of Foer's family in the Holocaust. The second after the laughter dies down, tears begin to leak, unbidden, and whether their cause is happiness or grief is indistinguishable — and unimportant, for the two feelings become one and the same in "Illuminated."

Although the movie effectively transitions from one genre to the other with subtle shifts in music and cinematographic technique, it is the actors' performances that give the film its true versatility. Despite that Elijah Wood's crystal blue eyes rarely move behind their thick black-frame glasses, his face communicates an infinite array of emotions just by the slightest movements of a mouth or an eyebrow. This stands in sharp contrast to first-timer Hutz's Alex, whose flamboyant nature and lankly body would distort the film's entire emotional premise had Hutz not taken pains to show Alex's sentimental and introspective side. Balancing the two extremes — the film is all about balance — is Leskin's Grandfather, whose eyes, like Wood's, are windows into a hidden past masked by Grandfather's silent and surly nature.

The attention paid to the characters is extended to each image that graces the screen. Schreiber's choices are deliberate and purposeful, although a second viewing may be necessary to discern their full significance. Although the issue is never addressed in the dialogue, the recovery of post-World War II Ukraine and the affect of American globalization speak through like a second story in the quick shots of abandoned buildings, war memorials, destitute houses and omnipresent bill board advertisements that are scattered along the long and winding path Foer, Alex and Grandfather take into the past.

The trio's winding path culminates in a brilliant illumination about the significance of the past, of friendship and of family. There are few films that can truly claim the viewer's heart, and fewer still that can teach that heart to love more deeply. "Everything Is Illuminated" is, without a doubt, one such film, for after seeing it, a gravestone will never mean the same thing again.

"Everything Is Illuminated" (104 minutes, at Landmark's Bethesda Row and Loews Cineplex Dupont) is rated PG-13 for some adult situations and mild violence.