Evan Dodds – Non-work-related blog

Jodi and I took a few hours out of our day on Thursday to go see the new movie Everything is Illuminated. This is the movie version of Jonathan Safran Foer’s best-selling book — a book that Jodi is a big fan of, and therefore that I “read” earlier in the summer. I quite liked the book, although, perhaps, not as much as his second book: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.

 

This was particularly exciting, because the movie is not yet in general release around the US. In fact, were we still at home in Seattle, we wouldn’t have been able to see it until today (Friday). And were we in some po-dunk part of the country, it wouldn’t have released for another week or more!

 

So, about the movie – I thought it was actually pretty darned good. I don’t think there’s any significant spoilers here (it’s not a particularly suspenseful book, in my opinion) but please don’t read the rest if you’re sensitive to that sort of thing.

 

They held to the book pretty well, getting many of the small details spot on. The character of Alex was VERY well translated, and Eugene Hutz was just perfect for the role. He nailed the ideosyncratic language exchanges and I was thrilled to see the interpretation of his self-image in the club scene toward the beginning of the film. Very funny!

 

I was disappointed to see the whole story of Brod and the history of the town excised out of the movie. I had been a little curious how they were going to make that flow without losing the viewer, since it was hard enough to follow some of the connections in the book… so I guess that’s the answer then. And truth-be-told, it didn’t really detract from the story — if you consider “Jonathan’s search” to be the core story in the book.

 

My only real complaint about the interpretation represented in the film was the significant change to the story that left Alex’s grandfather as a jew who was in the execution line-up and somehow (miraculously) survived rather than the guilty-conscience I took him for in the book after making a horrible-life-and-death decision about his close friend. When he later (and very obviously) took his life, it seemed much less subtle that he had killed himself, and yet much more unknown why he would have done this. I like the book version of this much better, as you understand why he felt so guilty but you could also empathize with the terrible choice he had to make. Perhaps it was considered too difficult to portray this in the film, but it really stands out as the weakest point in an otherwise excellent film.