THE BOOK THIEF

SYNOPSIS –a young girl struggles to find freedom under the Nazi regime The film’s main assets are its performances - not that the story is weak - just that strong performances help it run more smoothly. Sophie Nelisse gives a very compelling performance as the titular heroine, Rosa, but a strong performance also comes from Nico Liersch as her childhood friend Rudy. Both Geoffrey Rush and Emily Watson give strong individual performances as Sophie’s step parents, sharing a believable on-screen dynamic as a married couple. Some problems with the film might lie in what was kept and brought over from the source material. Book adaptations are tricky things, deciding what to keep and what to leave out. Some concepts after all are difficult to translate to the screen. The Book Thief, for example, is narrated by “Death” himself, a difficult concept to bring to the screen. To its credit, having decided to include this tricky narration, the film uses it as effectively as it can. The fact remains, however, that the mystical voice of Death (though played effectively by Roger Allam) sits uncomfortably with the otherwise brutally realistic tone the film strives for. The filmmakers do use their setting very effectively; the sight of school children in Nazi uniform is definitely a provocative one that does not fail to create an emotional reaction in the audience. Rather than go into cliché groups of anti-Nazis vs die-hard believers, we instead get well-rounded three dimensional characters who ring true in the environment they are put in. This works best with the young idealistic Rudi who is not only a loyal friend and confident but for most of the film a firm believer in the regime FINAL VERDICT 7/10 on the whole the film provides a moving emotional journey and gives us characters we can connect with