Film Review: Everything is Illuminated (2005)

1. This movie starts out really funny.
2. Then it gets serious.
3. Then it ends serious.
4. There were some underlying themes that I gave up trying to think about.

That pretty much sums up how I feel about this movie. Now, that's a really shallow overview, but I don't know that this film did a good job of explaining the themes associated with each of the characters.

(SPOILER WARNING, DO NOT CONTINUE IF YOU THINK YOU'LL WATCH THIs ANY TIME SOON)

For instance, I really don't get the point in the collecting habits, or should I say disorder, that 'Jonafen' has. I know that it comes up a few times, and it's thoroughly spoken of that he just does it for something to do. But that simply can't be the only reason.

Another thing I didn't understand was everything that had to do with this "Augustine" character. How the heck did she save Jonafen's grandfather during the holocaust?
Probably my biggest beef with it all was the change of heart in the grandpa. I didn't get how he went from being a super grouch to happy to dead.

On the positive side, there were some lines from this that were so memorable they just might top what everyone thought was funny in Napolean Dyanmite. The film is well worth seeing simply to hear Aleksander use off the wall english synonyms.