Liev Schreiber knows indie cinema backwards. While recognisable from the Scream trilogy and The Manchurian Candidate, he has also carved out a niche at the coalface of interesting smaller films that deserve a wider audience.
So it is apt that his debut as writer/director ticks lots of indie boxes - character-defining road trip, quirky protagonists, wide open spaces, laid-back pacing and expressive camerawork (shot in nostalgic hues by Matthew Libatique) – but is infused with the kind of pure heart that its contemporaries rarely share.
After playing a couple of unsavoury individuals in Sin City and Green Street, Elijah Wood fully embraces the blankness demanded by his character - a nerdy, near-obsessive collector of family artefacts (imagine a Reservoir Dog reject in jam-jar specs).
However, the film belongs to the Ukrainians – newcomer Eugene Hutz as Foer's Americana-loving 'tour guide' Alex, Boris Leskin as Alex's cantankerous grandfather who does the driving despite swearing he's blind and the barking Sammy Davis Jr Jr – grandpa's seeing-eye dog.
Playing Alex as a sort of buffoon-savant who talks as though he swallowed a dubious early draft of Roget's Thesaurus ("I am a premium dancer"), Hutz makes a perfect foil for Wood's buttoned-down geek.
Interestingly, he landed the role after being originally approached to provide the soundtrack; his 'gypsy punk' band Gogol Bordello play the manic but Oscar-worthy song 'Start Wearing Purple' over the end credits.
With some genuine laugh-out-loud moments, the film perfectly segues from broad stranger-in-a-strange-land comedy to surprisingly welcome melancholia before concluding with – as the title infers – soaring illumination.
If 'Everything Is Illuminated' fails to take the podium at next year's awards ceremonies, then we all may as well give up right now.
Tim Postins
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