A road film in a sparse landscape, an adaptation of a novel by Jonathan Safran Foer. It follows the quest -- the "very rigid search," in the uncertain English of the Ukrainian guide and translator -- for the peasant woman who in WWII saved the life of the late grandfather of a young American Jew (Elijah Wood, looking like one of the Men in Black, an alien even in his native land), but really a quest for quirks, personal oddities, cultural dissonances. Actor-turned-director Liev Schreiber (strictly behind the camera) pushes the absurdism very hard, and the relentless ethnic background music lends a hand and a shoulder, until the climax of straight schmaltz and a musical switch to angelic harps. Eugene Hutz, Boris Leskin, Laryssa Lauret. (2005) — Duncan Shepherd
This movie is not currently in theaters.