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Reviews provided by RottenTomatoes
Connie Ogle, Miami Herald: Schreiber effectively incorporates some of the novel's humor, most of which revolves around Alex's amusingly improvisational English, but never comes close to mining the book's true substance or heartbreak. Read more
Allison Benedikt, Chicago Tribune: Every novel cannot be a movie, and this one should not have been. Read more
John Hartl, Seattle Times: Perhaps because it's no longer so much about the language, the movie comes across as slight and somewhat fussy. What distinguished the novel doesn't quite translate to the screen. Read more
G. Allen Johnson, San Francisco Chronicle: Schreiber's images -- a graveyard of old war machines, a field of sunflowers -- are impressive and help convey the wonderful idea behind Everything Is Illuminated: that no matter who we are or where we live, we are all connected. Read more
Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper: As a whimsical and at times poignant look at family secrets and family ties, it's effective, it's moving. Read more
Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: This isn't a frivolous film or a dumb one. Mostly, it feels like a mistake -- the wrong director matched with the wrong material. Read more
Kerry Lengel, Arizona Republic: It sounds weird, and it is. It's also very funny, not to mention mesmerizing and, finally, heartbreaking. Read more
Ty Burr, Boston Globe: Fans of Jonathan Safran Foer may rightly consider this an act of taxidermy. Everything Is Illuminated hasn't been adapted so much as gutted, stuffed, and mounted. Read more
Carina Chocano, Los Angeles Times: Schreiber takes Foer's sprawling, multilayered, multigenerational beast and hones it into a post-Glasnost buddy picture. Read more
Amy Biancolli, Houston Chronicle: It's profound in the way that life is profound in hindsight, its view of the past both fixed in history and mutable in the telling. And it's exquisitely tender. Read more
Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: The story is confusingly told -- everything is not illuminated -- and, as the seeker, Elijah Wood is a big blank. Read more
Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: Actors talk about wanting to stretch, but few would hazard a project with such a high degree of difficulty as Schreiber. Read more
Ella Taylor, L.A. Weekly: [A] brave and loving movie. Read more
Gene Seymour, Newsday: Schreiber shows enough heart and mind in his first time at bat to make you hope he gets another shot. Read more
Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: Falls far short of illuminating Foer's complicated book. But it does provide the sort of low-key, road-trip ramblings we haven't seen since the'70s heyday of Hal Ashby. Read more
Jack Mathews, New York Daily News: Jonathan is about the most passive protagonist you're likely to see on the screen for a while. Read more
A.O. Scott, New York Times: The adaptation of Jonathan Safran Foer's best-selling novel is whimsical when it should be darkly funny and poignant when it should be devastating. Read more
Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: It's funny and warm, with the sting of the horrific event that triggered the trip giving it a melancholy feel. Read more
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: A film that grows in reflection. Read more
Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com: Schreiber leaves the whimsy faucet dripping for far too long. Read more
David Edelstein, Slate: There isn't enough drama here to sustain an entire film, and Schreiber's direction is relentlessly coy. Read more
Jeff Strickler, Minneapolis Star Tribune: The ultra-serious Jonathan and the laid-back Alex are an ideal odd couple. By switching focus between them, Schreiber can quickly steer the movie to different emotional ground. Read more
Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: A movie that wraps a story of mass murder in a package of whimsy, and prefers to focus on our commonality rather than any collective complicity in the crimes of history. Read more
Peter Howell, Toronto Star: [Schreiber] has managed something of a feat ... in spinning a single charming story out of Foer's yarn ball of a novel, which spanned 200 years, multiple stories and various protagonists. Read more
Todd McCarthy, Variety: No one seeing Schreiber's film could begin to imagine the breadth and nature of the book. Read more
Michael Atkinson, Village Voice: It may be substantially less ambitious than its source material, but that may be what saves it from implosion. Read more
Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post: Read more