Everything Is Illuminated

Ah, actor turned directors. Where would Hollywood be without them? Oh I know, in a much better place making much better movies. Unforunatelly Hollywood has been plagued with quite a few actors who tried their hands at directing films, few of them successfully. Now we have Liev Schreiber, who is albeit a competent actor, but probably realized his career was going nowhere and opted to try directing instead. No, I'm being a little cruel. Everything is Iluminated is a great novel I'm sure, and reading it Schreiber was probably inspired to turn it into a film, but how good was that film? Let's just say that Schreiber directs the same way he acts, he puts way too much thought into it, he has moments of brilliance, but overall he's way too inconsistent to crank out anything truly decent. It's amazing comparing this film to Thumbsucker, which I saw moments before this, and comparing it thereafter. It's astounding how indi films vary in quality, while Thumbsucker is a emotionally invoking human drama, Everything is Illuminated should be but deals far too much with pretty visuals and silly jokes. The first forty five minutes make it seem like some kind of adventure flick with some cute characters that say some funny things on some twisted, [...] road trip looking for some Jewish guy's dead grandfather's saviour back in WWII. Interesting enough I suppose, but it seems like Schreiber is taking the beginning part of the movie too loosely, and I get the wrong impression. Because at the end the film suddenly leaps off an emotional cliff into this deeply disturbing and mature material that totally doesn't fit with the rest of the movie. And the audience is supposed to feel sad, but they don't because Schreiber doesn't take the former part of the movie seriously. Elijah Wood looks fantastic, the character they created visually is really cool, but when he opens his mouth he kind of ruins it for everyone. Which is why his part in Sin City was so good. The supporting cast is relatively unknown, but is solid, and do their best to support the rookie director. But ulimately it seems Schreiber's odd vision for the film overwhelms all else, and while his visuals are poetic and beautiful, the story doesn't work in the way he chooses to tell it. And it doesn't do anything emotionally at all. And nitpicking, what's up with the goddamn chapter thing he does? Chapter One: The Beginning of... Yada yada yada. Really, really unintelligent decision. Not a really poorly made film, but it just doesn't fit together, and it has no effect on the audience whatsoever. It's a shame because the material is actually very interesting and would be emotionally gripping under a director like Steven Spielberg. A swing and somewhat of a foul ball for Liev Schreiber in his directorial debut.