The Book Thief

Summary:

While subjected to the horrors of World War II Germany, young Liesel finds solace by stealing books and sharing them with others. In the basement of her home, a Jewish refugee is being sheltered by her adoptive parents.

Plot:

Since I already read this book, I can’t really say much about the plot. One of the great things about this movie is that it didn’t chánge or add anything in the story, it only left some parts out (which is completely understandable). The movie isn’t extremely fast-paced, and knowing what happens at the end made it a little boring to watch, but that is only because I already knew the story, not because I thought it was a bad movie. I liked that they kept a little of the narration by ‘Death’, which was one of the things I liked best about the book.

Characters:

I loved the acting, especially the younger actors, they were really great and seemed to understand the essence of the characters very well. Rudy was my favourite character in the book, and I really liked his portrayal in the movie as well. Liesel is a wonderful character, and Hans and Rosa are both interesting and funny. Overall the characters weren’t exactly as I imagined them, but they were very well handled.

Cinematography:

Beautiful. The colours and lighting create mood and atmosphere, and there wasn’t one scene where I didn’t notice how gorgeous the overall look of the movie was.

Who should watch this:

PG-13, obviously, since this is a WW2 movie, there is a lot of violence. The violence is not extremely graphic, but it is intense and quite scary. If you enjoyed the book then I suggest watching this. If you haven’t read the book, don’t watch it quite yet...GO READ IT! RIGHT NOW!

My rating:

I was not sure how people could make a movie out of this book, but somehow they managed it. It wasn’t nearly as good as the book, but it was a really great movie. 5/5