DIRECTOR: Brian
Percival LEAD CAST: Sophie
Nelisse, Geoffrey Rush, Nico Liersch, Emily Watson, Ben Schnetzer, Joachim Paul
Assbock SCREENWRITER: Michael
Petroni PRODUCER: Ken
Blancato, Karen Rosenfelt EDITOR: John Wilson MUSICAL DIRECTOR: John Williams GENRE: Drama CINEMATOGRAPHER: Florian
Ballhaus DISTRIBUTOR: 20th
Century Fox LOCATION: United
States, Germany RUNNING TIME: 131 minutes
Technical assessment: 4
Moral assessment: 3.5
CINEMA rating:
V 14
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Although
narrated by Death (voiced by Roger Allam), The Book Thief is a life-affirming
coming-of-age tale about an adolescent, Liesel Meminger (Sophie Nelisse). Orphaned Liesel’s foster parents, house
painter Hans Hubermann (Geoffrey Rush) and his wife Rosa (Emily Watson) live a
frugal life in an obscure German village during the Third Reich. In school Liesel is discovered to be
illiterate; she learns to read only through the patience of her benevolent
foster father Hans who turns the basement of their house into a veritable
dictionary, with Liesel writing down every new word learned from reading a “The
Gravedigger’s Handbook” which she grabbed when it fell from a workman’s coat at
her brother’s funeral.
The Book
Thief, adapted from Markus
Zusak’s lyrical 2006 best-seller by screenwriter Michael Petroni and director Brian
Percival, is a tender story given life by sensitive performances, particularly
of Rush and Watson as the forster parents. Tension is provided by the war setting but it is balanced by
the care the director gives to ensure authentic characterization—even in the
supporting cast (Auer as Frau Hermann; Lierrsch as Rudy Steiner; and Schnetzer
as Jewish fugitive Max Vanderburg).
The horror of the holocaust seems deliberately played down, and the air
raid scenes are not as emotionally compelling as they may have been in real
life. Williams’ score is evocative, however, matching Balhaus’
engaging cinematography.
Hardnosed film
critics tend to view The Book Thief
as a “Disneyfied” war movie that sanitizes history in order to elevate the
better side of humans. That cannot
be all bad. The movie maintains
that even in the worst of times, one can find good people who selflessly help
their fellowmen. The Hubermanns
are such people, even if at first they take in Liesel for a government
allowance, Hans immediately turns into a compassionate foster father to the
orphaned Liesel, and in due time the gruff-mannered Rosa reveals her tender
maternal side to the girl. Frau
Hermann, who spots Liesel snatching a book from a book-burning Nazi rally, secretly
entertains Liesel in her library when she delivers laundry. Not all war movies are meant to talk
about man’s inhumanity to man. Don’t
go to see The Book Thief for your
history lessons, but see it for the hope it brings as it shamelessly portrays
faith in the human soul.
