Times Critic Leaves Much to Be Illuminated

Why do opportunistic, clever young novelists — I won’t name any names — gravitate toward magic-realist depictions of the decidedly unmagical reality of the Shoah? For the same reason that actors shave their heads and starve themselves, or preen and leer in jackboots and epaulets. For the same reason that filmmakers commission concrete barracks and instruct their cinematographers and lab technicians to filter out bright, saturated colors. To win prizes of course.

The title of Liev Schreiber's 'Everything Is Illuminated,' adapted from the best-selling novel of the same title by Jonathan Safran Foer, refers to the way the past casts a glow of understanding onto the present. A less charitable interpretation is also possible. The film, more emphatically than the book but in keeping with its spirit, suggests that even the darkest page of history can be bathed in a glow of consoling, self-congratulatory sentiment.