The Book Thief

‘No one lives forever’

The Book Thief is a movie about a young girl called Liesl taken in by foster parents Hans (Geoffrey Rush) and Rosa (Emily Watson) and soon learns how to read, giving them to other people, including a Jewish man called Max who is hiding in their basement away from the Nazis.

The actors, the soundtrack and the director determine and show how good the film is. Emily Watson was very good as Rosa, the uptight mother, and I had previously seen her in War Horse; whilst I was watching Geoffrey Rush almost the whole time- even Sophie Nelisse was exceptional in her role as Liesl and she is the type of actress who speaks more through facial expressions than words.

As for the novel that it is based on by Markus Zusak, I have not read it yet; even if I usually read the book before watching the film but I might read it at some point to see how it compares to a surprisingly outstanding movie.

At first I thought it would be a boring family film where war is a background thing, but considering that it is set in World War II Germany where Hitler was upon them and any books that are against him were immediately burnt in a huge fire. The soundtrack is brilliant, it fits in with the mood of the scene and out of the way of the film.

I must warn you- a box of tissues at the ready is absolutely necessary as it is one of those films that do not hit you until they need to be- at the very end. You are free to predict what might happen next but it is not at all predictable. It had some points, however, when I thought it had ended and it turned out to have 20 or 30 minutes left and the Apple reference on the computer in one of the scenes ruined the mood.

4.5/5