Everything is Illuminated Critic Reviews

Everything Is Illuminated hasn't been adapted so much as gutted, stuffed, and mounted.Read the full review

A film that grows in reflection. The first time I saw it, I was hurtling down the tracks of a goofy ethnic comedy when suddenly we entered dark and dangerous territory. I admired the film but did not sufficiently appreciate its arc.Read the full review

For one of those obstreperously original books that are themselves impossible to translate, Everything Is Illuminated is impressively well lit.Read the full review

Schreiber takes Foer's sprawling, multilayered, multigenerational beast and hones it into a post-Glasnost buddy picture; a polished nugget of a road movie, focused mainly on Alex and Jonathan's growing sense of identification with each other and with their origins.Read the full review

This movie is sloppy and disjointed - an unsatisfying melodrama built upon a shaky foundation of contrivances, coincidences, and plot holes.Read the full review

Wood, whose mostly mute turn is defined by his black suit and glasses, can only stare in stupefaction at Schreiber's jittery mix of broad laughs and sentiment. Audiences will share the feeling.Read the full review

An almost screwball comedy that turns serious.Read the full review

Everything Is Illuminated is not a fiasco, but in some ways I'd have preferred a fiasco—something overreaching and inchoate instead of this self-consciously artistic mood piece.Read the full review

Leave it to Liev: Schreiber capably adds writer-director to his impressive resume with this winning take on the Jonathan Safran Foer novel.Read the full review