Slightly More Illuminated

I just watched Everything is Illuminated. I finished reading the book last week and I was blown away by it. I loved it so much that I ran out and bought his second book, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, by which I am currently being blown even further away. Needless to say, Jonathan Safran Foer is my new favorite author. The books are so original and complex, and written with so much energy and enthusiasm. He writes about love and loss, joy and sadness so vividly that it makes me curious as to what his life experiences have been.

Anyway, the movie. When having read the book from which a film has been adapted, I'm not usually one who can easily set aside my expectations for the movie. I always want it to be true to the book, even though often this is clearly not possible. I tried to keep an open mind for this movie because I loved the book so much. This being said, I think I can honestly say that I did like the movie. They did change things drastically, and not always necessarily due to time constraints. But, I guess what I loved most about the book were the characters, and the movie did them justice. Although the story-line was Hollywood-ised a bit, Jonathan was Jonathan, Grandfather was Grandfather, Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior was great and Alex was so very very Alex.

Eugene Hutz (of Gogol Bordello fame) stole the show as Alex. The movie didn't really go into the depths of his character like the book did, but he lived up to all of my expectations. I checked out the deleted scenes and it's a shame they cut some of them. The one of Alex describing his sexual adventures really didn't fit with the movie but it was pretty funny and very Alex... and even kind of alluded to midget porn, which I'm sure Jon would appreciate. It also made me really happy to hear the use of Start Wearing Purple by Gogol Bordello, I admit that I got up off the couch and danced a bit when it came on.

I guess the biggest disappointment from the movie was that it didn't go into Jonathan's family history at all, which were some of my favorite parts of the book. I would really like to have seen the love stories of Brod and the Kolker or Safran and the Gypsy Girl. I suppose there's enough material there to make an entire separate movie though, so I can see why it was cut.

All told, I give it a thumbs up. Definitely worth watching whether you've read the book or not. For those who have read it, it's really lovely to meet all of the characters, and for those who haven't, it's a great story. Enjoy.