all the girls want to be carnal with me

Everything is Illuminated is an odd little fish, based on the novel by Jonathan Safran Foer. It's a road trip comedy through Ukraine and it's about the Holocaust. It stars the almost intolerable Elijah Wood, but it's Eugene Hutz's show. Wood plays a young American Jew traveling to Ukraine to find his roots, to find a place that doesn't exist anymore. Hutz plays Alex, his tour guide.

Alex communicates in a mangled patois that passes for English. His elocution is memorable for gems like "Grandfather's officious seeing eye bitch," and "All the girls want to be carnal with me because I am such a premium dancer." You might guess that the phrase "everything is illuminated" is Alex's, from his journal of their "rigid search."

Hutz is a Ukrainian emigre and the front man for the band Gogol Bordello, appearing also in the movie's soundtrack. He thus steals the show on two levels, because the soundtrack is excellent.

There is a nagging complaint. Hutz/Alex uses an implausible tongue. He speaks as one who is deliberately engaging in some thickly accented near doublespeak. His expressive wordplay reminds me more of Andrei Codrescu's deft essays on NPR than of a Ukrainian emigre getting his point across over the language barrier. It's great fun, just don't take it seriously. If you wind up listening to Gogol Bordello after seeing the movie, as I did, you'll find it more and more affected. Clever, and affected.

It is a minor complaint. Illuminated is much more comedy than drama, and when was the last time you saw a good comedy set against the backdrop of the Holocaust?

Certain books and movies inspire me to travel. This one opens up Ukraine like road stories set in rural parts of the States make me want to grab a pen and notebook and take off in a beat up car, eating in truck stops and sleeping in decrepit motels. It takes its place on my completely subjective and personal list next to stories like On the Road, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and Easy Rider.

The movie comes to a poignant ending, with the grandfather in a dual role as anti-Semitic devil and Jewish victim, and Alex working his way through his own ignorance about Ukrainian history and finally demonstrating some depth of character. My advice: Don't think about it too much. That's more or less the conclusion Alex reaches, too. It's not an entirely satisfactory ending for a story launched by the Holocaust. But that is the point. In the end, the story expresses itself the same way Alex does, that is to say, awkwardly, and with humor.