The Book Thief

If you’ve read the book, The Book Thief, as I have, you know that it is an unusual book with a very different storytelling style—it is narrated by Death, and it is filled with beautiful imagery and language. It remains one of my favorite books.

If you’ve forgotten much of what you read, as I have, that’s about all you can remember about it.

So when I found that reviewers didn’t love the movie, that they thought it too sentimental and sanitized, I didn’t rush right out to see it. But when it made it to our second-run theater, it seemed like it was time to give it a try. It might not be great, but for 4 bucks, who cares?

Well. I’m the first to admit that I can’t compare the two very closely, because I just don’t remember the book that well anymore. I think that it was a bit grittier, and that the girl Liesel and her friend Rudy were a little more rough-and-tumble than they appear in this movie.

However, the story remains the same—after talking to others who have read the book, they confirmed that the movie stuck very closely to the plot of the book. It’s the style that is different.

That said, the movie is lovely. Warm and beautiful images that are still somehow stark bring viewers back to the time and place of this German town during World War II. Liesel is taken into a foster home by a harsh woman named Rosa and her gentle, loving husband Hans. Geoffrey Rush plays Liesel’s foster father, and you can’t help but wish this man were your own grandfather or uncle or something. He is just wonderful in the role.

Liesel is played by Sophie Nélisse, a beautiful girl whose large, luminous eyes clearly captured the director and those operating the cameras. In fact, in the beginning, when Rosa complains that she has been sent a dirty child, I was left momentarily confused because I rarely see children who are that cleaned up! Apparently they couldn’t bear to make her less beautiful.

Rudy seems somehow younger and littler than I imagined him, but Max, the young Jewish man that Rosa and Hans hide in the basement, fits exactly. Aside from the fact that, again, he should have looked a little rougher. He did not look nearly sickly enough.

If you are a book lover, this is a movie you can hardly dislike—the importance of words, language and books is such a central part of the story. Keep the tissue handy if you are so inclined.

While there is something that is less hard-hitting about the movie than the book that it is based on, this is a lovely little film. I think they made the movie appropriate for a slightly younger audience than the book was aimed at, which I’m happy about because I fully intend to show this to all three of my children, 10 and up. Though I might leave them to watch it without me, because that 10-year-old really hates it when I cry.