Nevertheless, Everything Is Illuminated has a haunting afterglow, one that neither satisfies nor illuminates, but at least keeps the flame alive.

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.

This isn't a frivolous film or a dumb one. Mostly, it feels like a mistake -- the wrong director matched with the wrong material.

While Schreiber shows promise behind the camera, the competing tones never quite harmonize into a satisfying whole.