My film-snob friend Dan thought this show wasn't any good, but I profoundly disagreed. Having liked an excerpt of the book published in The New Yorker a million years ago, I rented the film from Netflix hoping to bottle some of that shimmery, secret pixie dust for my own brains: How to Write A Novel That Gets a Movie Deal. Not sure I found that, but I thought the Eugene Hutz performance stole the show with much-needed humor to balance the Holocaust theme, while the Elijah Wood character's obsessive collecting habits said something profound about the whole theme of the Jewish diaspora (or any diaspora) searching for its roots. I suppose I would have liked to have seen more humor toward the end: Happiness, too, is inevitable.

Just watched the DVD of " Everything is Illuminated " & ran across your comment
in a Google search. The movie was very
meaningful to me. My mother was brought to the U.S. as an infant by her
mother who was escaping hatred for &
lack of opportunitiy for Jews pre-Hitler.She came from Tarnow, small town in part of Europe variously considered part of Austria, then Poland. Part of her family stayed & were annihilated by Hitler's troops at the outset of WWII. I have long dreamed of going to find the remains
of the Shtetl, but never could. I'm too
old & poor to make the trip now, but
I know there is little left to find anyway. On IMBD.COM there was an
account of an interview with the
director, Liev Schreiber, where he said
the film embodies the idea that:
the idea that "a past lovingly imagined was as valuable as a past accurately recalled". I found that insight profound and comforting.
P Wallace

I need to check that out. Sounds good. Nice to meet you at the Springfield Bloggger's election night.