The Book Thief

Ratings: 6.8/10

Film Class: C+

Genre: Drama

Sent to a small town foster home in Germany during World War II, 9-year-old Liesel Meminger must learn to live a new life with her step parents, where she would eventually learn to read and gain a forbidden affection for books. It’s the infamous Nazi days when books were burnt to curb the spread of ideas and where Jews were the enemies of the state.

What makes this movie interesting is that the story is narrated by Death. The narration was literature-like, almost poetic, humorous at times. However, the story doesn’t do the movie title “justice”, if there’s even such a thing as justice at all.

I mean though we do see young Liesel stealing books from an affluent family at some point in the movie, it’s only for that short while. And there’s no justice, commentary or even much mention about it. It felt like a touch and go subplot, with the main plot lingering on this Jewish man Max, who was hiding out in their basement home because Liesel’s stepdad was indebted to Max’s dad.

I can’t help but assume that “books”, ideas was to be the major plot in this, but came to the realisation it was about Death and human relationships. Considering it’s a 2hr+ long movie, it could be quite draggy at times, without much of an ending climax. The Book Thief didn’t make my cut of heart-warming, soul searching movies, the only thing it stole, was my time.