The Book Thief

Went to see The Book Thief at the cinema last Friday... It's about an illiterate German girl, Liesel, who loses her parents and is adopted by an odd couple in the years leading up to the Second World War. Her step-mother is almost stereo-typically harsh at first, while her step-father provides light relief in the form of accordion playing and jokes. As a new girl, Liesel struggles at school (particularly since she can't read) but her step-father teaches her and she develops a friendship with Rudy, the boy next door.

The backdrop to all this is the growing power of the Nazis, the declaration of war and the increasing persecution of the Jews. A Jewish friend of the family ends up on the run, living in their basement. Meanwhile the girl attends a Nazi book burning and waiting behind until everyone is gone, manages to rescue one of the books, H.G. Wells' The Invisible Man which is so warm it's practically smoking!

There are quite a few genuinely funny moments and the acting on the whole is very good. The thing that I didn't like, and I can't quite put my finger on it, is the tone. The narrator is death, and there is certainly a fair bit of death in the film as you might expect, but the contrast with the almost unreal chocolate-box depiction of wartime Germany was unsettling. Which may have been the film-maker's intention. The book is aimed at young adults, and I think the film is aimed at this market too.

 I wouldn't say it was a great film,  but that's probably because it invites obvious comparisons with such heavyweight titles as Schindler's List and The Pianist. It's certainly not as good as those, but the lead actors are very watchable, particularly Sophie Nelisse as Liesel and Geoffrey Rush as her step-father.

There are some powerful moments, and I have to say that I didn't leave the cinema dry-eyed!