Everything is Illuminated (2005)

What a delightful surprise this film turned out to be since the little I knew about the slim plot did not seem likely to suggest the moving experience it became.  This is a first directorial effort from actor Liev Schreiber from his own script based on the novel by Jonathan Safran Foer -- which I have not read but will now definitely seek out.  Elijah Wood is effectively the only American in the cast, playing a young Jewish man of the same name as the book's author who documents his family's history in ziplok bags hung on a wall and who decides to travel to the Ukraine to find the woman who saved his grandfather's life during World War II.  He enlists the aid of a young man who runs "Heritage Tours", catering to similar Jewish pilgrims and the boy's grandfather (who claims to be blind but who drives the van!) complete with his seeing-eye mutt.  What starts off as a quirky road movie as they attempt to find the small town which no one has ever heard of (or more likely would prefer to forget) takes a radical change of pace into serious waters.  When they eventually find one old woman who is able to shed some light on the past, which needless to say is rather different than Wood was expecting, all three travellers must examine their own feelings about family, bigotry, and the crimes of the past.  Without giving too much away I can only recommend that you seek out this movie -- unless getting all choked-up at the end is really not your scene.