‘The Book Thief’

Director:  Brian Percival

Release date: 27 November 2013

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

The Book Thief, based off the novel by Markus Zusak, follows a young Liesel Meminger as she struggles in her new foster home in Nazi Germany. During her stay she finds comfort in reading and continues to steal books for new material to read, and a runaway Jew finds shelter in the basement of their house. The movie follows the main plot of the book almost perfectly and stays true to majority of the book throughout.

Sophie Nélisse, who plays Liesel, does an amazing job portraying her character, and she successfully represents the emotion that goes along with playing such an important role. The best emotional parts of the book were incorporated in, and my dad, who rarely ever cries, teared up during several parts of the movie. Geoffrey Rush, who played Hans Hubermann, Liesel’s foster father, also does a fantastic job at adding the bit of humor thats greatly appreciated in such a serious film.

Another high point of the movie was the cinematography, the angles being used added to certain effects of different scenes and the scenery was absolutely gorgeous. In the book, the narration of death is extremely important to the plot line, but in the movie, death only speaks about three times and is pretty useless in the movie although it adds a haunting effect towards the end of the movie and was a good way to open. I would have liked to see death narrate more of the movie so that it would make sense, or just not narrate at all.

The movie is a long 130 minutes, which was expected as it had to live up to a 550 page novel. It is rated PG-13 because it is focused around a generally dark subject, and a fair amount of violence. I recommend anyone who has read the book, and enjoyed it, should go see the movie for its accurate representation of the novel, or anyone looking for an emotional, well-made film.