The Book Thief

The Book Thief (2013) is about a girl in Nazi Germany, narrated by Death. Liesel loses her brother on the road and is given to a foster couple. She cannot read. Her foster father teaches her in the basement. At one of the book burnings she takes a volume that did not catch, and from then on she keeps every book she finds. Max is hiding in that same basement: a Jew, the son of her father's comrade from the war. Liesel tells him what she is reading and describes the weather outside. Death narrates, which comes from Markus Zusak's novel. Death is tired, curious and does not understand people; it says in advance who it is going to take, so the film spoils itself, and the tension comes from when rather than what. John Williams wrote the score and was nominated for an Oscar. It was rare for him to work outside Spielberg's films in that period. Geoffrey Rush plays the foster father and Emily Watson the mother. The film is far gentler than the book. Zusak's text is darker and the voice of Death colder; the adaptation pushes the sentiment forward and was criticised for it. It is set in a German speaking country but is in English with accented dialogue, and that choice was argued over too. The shelter scenes are the best of it. It runs 131 minutes. Good for: wartime drama, book adaptations, and family stories. Less good for: the tone does not carry the book's hardness and the ending is heavy.