Road trip movies are all over the map, some highly interesting, others surprising and a few just plain silly. Everything Is Illuminated, about a young man’s journey to find the woman who saved his grandfather from the Nazi invasion, deserves all three of these descriptions. Writer and actor Liev Schreiber, who makes his directorial debut with this film, first came across the story in a magazine. It was eventually turned into a book by Jonathan Safran Foer.

Elijah Wood stars as Jonathan Safran Foer, a young Jewish collector living in New York who accumulates his family’s past and present in baggies and nails them to the wall. When his grandfather passed away, Jonathan took a small glass bubble encasing a grasshopper and placed it in a bag, as he did with his grandmother’s false teeth upon her death. After her passing, Jonathan realizes he must go to the Ukraine and find Augustine, the mysterious woman in a photograph with his father. He’s been told it was she who saved his grandfather the night the Nazi’s annihilated the entire inhabitants of a small Ukrainian town.

Jonathan does his homework and discovers there’s a company in the Ukraine that helps rich Jewish tourists explore their past. He’s quite surprised when he’s met at the airport by Alex (Eugene Hutz) -- a quirky, tall, lanky young man with a lopsided grin -- and his supposedly blind grandfather (Boris Leskin). Jonathan’s even more startled when Grandfather gets behind the wheel to drive. Jonathan questions this but is told it’s okay because Grandfather has his official seeing-eye dog (actually wearing a t-shirt that says so) named “Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior” to help out.

Considering Elijah Wood’s success in Lord of the Rings, it might be hard to imagine him in a small independent film. But he blends in perfectly as the odd loner with the wide spectacles and the big eyes, and ultimately this story is not about his character. Wood was looking for a project totally different than Rings and was excited when he read the script for Everything is Illuminated. “It’s very difficult to find something that is unique and has its own vision and something that instills passion,” he said. “This was definitely one of those scripts. It was imaginative, lyrical, beautiful and naturally funny.”

“Elijah is so youthful and innocent in many ways but is also incredibly professional,” added Schreiber (The Manchurian Candidate ). 

When Jonathan dines that evening at the men’s home, he’s even more worried that he made the wrong decision. Grandfather is cantankerous, rude, angry and not happy about making the trip to the small town that Jonathan seeks to find. Alex really didn’t intend on going along, but after Grandfather’s tirade he figures he best go along and protect their customer.

Influenced by The Gods Must Be Crazy, a film that cast Ukrainians who had never acted before, Schreiber made it a point not to cast an American in the role of Alex, but was surprised to find his Ukrainian right under his nose in New York City. When Hutz heard Schreiber explain what he was looking for in the character, Hutz, who had not acted before and is a member of a punk rock band, exclaimed, “I am that guy.” And he does a decent job in bringing his weird but funny character to life.

Leskin parlays his years of experience in the Saint Petersburg Theatre in New York into creating a complex character, one who makes a surprising and profound discovery on the road trip.

Filmed in Prague, the countryside becomes an interesting backdrop for the road trip. At times the scenery is complicated, unusual and unexpected, much like the relationship of the three men plus the dog riding in the car. Other times it’s open, vast and slightly beautiful, aspects that eventually broaden the relationships of the three men.

Searching for the illusive town of Trachimbord seems to be harder than the men expect. Town after town, no one seems to have heard of it. Just when they are about to give up, someone tells them the way. They arrive in a scene right out of The Wizard of Oz. A lone house stands in the middle of an enormous field of tall sunflowers, and white sheets billow in the wind like an orchestra offering a silent tune of nirvana.  

Augustine, the inhabitant of the house, has tended her own collection of secrets and waited all these years for someone to come reap the rewards of her efforts. As Jonathan begins to undercover his family’s mystery, Grandfather makes a discovery of his own, and it’s one in which Everything Is Illuminated.

(Released by Warner Independent Pictures and rated “PG-13” for disturbing images/violence, sexual content and language.)

Read Diana Saenger’s reviews of classic films at http://classicfilm.about.com.