Everything is Illuminated is a quirky movie. Elijah Wood plays Jonathan Safran Foer, a young Jewish man who seemingly compulsively takes objects relating to his family members, puts them in small ziplock baggies, and pins them to the wall in his room. Just before his grandmother dies, she gives him a photograph of his grandfather and a young woman. This photo is Jonathan’s connection to the small village in Ukraine that his ancestors inhabited before World War II. Jonathan decides to travel to Ukraine to find the young woman who saved his grandfather from being savagely killed by the Nazis.
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Jonathan’s driver and tour guide, Grandfather, is a small, white haired old man who wears sunglasses because he thinks he is blind. Grandfather’s deranged seeing eye dog goes along for the ride, and ends up in the back seat of the car with Jonathan who, by the way, has a phobia of dogs. Jonathan’s grandson, Alex, rides along as Jonathan’s translator.
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After a few wrong turns and lots of aimless driving, the three travelers meet a lone woman who is the only living remnant of Trachimbrod, the small village Jonathan’s grandfather, Safran Foer, left so many years ago. Once there, Jonathan and Alex learn much about their ancestors, and Grandfather revisits some things he had forgotten about himself. It is here that Jonathan shares the reason he puts objects in plastic bags: because sometimes he is afraid he will forget.
