hyped garbage

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

I went into this film having not read the book it was based upon, so I'm not sure exactly how faithful it was to the source material, but overall it seemed quite intriguing. The story being set in a small German village was an interesting vehicle for how major events in history are interpreted.The main strengths of this film stem from the excellent performances of its main cast, with the formidable Geoffrey Rush as the kind-hearted Hans, Emily Watson as the secretly loving but strict Rosa and Sophie Nélisse as the determined and fiesty Liesel. The score from John Williams is also beautiful, which is what you would expect from a man of his talents.The theme of using literature as an escape from life in Nazi Germany was well well explored, whilst the film being narrated by the embodiment of Death allowed for some intriguing philosophical ideas to be introduced.However, I felt the film was not as emotionally impactful as it could have been and there was a lack of tension in moments where there should have been, so that detached me from the narrative somewhat. Also I felt aspects of life in Nazi Germany were skimmed over with not enough focus in some areas.

I loved the movie so much on first viewing that I went out and bought the book. One of those occasions however where the movie is better than the written word. It surprises me that it seemed somewhat overlooked when on first release. Yes it is a bit too sentimental in places but that is what movies are sometimes meant to be, to take us out of our drab existence. The soundtrack is excellent too and by John Williams of course. In time I expect this to be a Christmas Day movie.

I think the film stands, hence my rating.I'm more of a film watcher than a novel reader, but in my experience, for book adaptations, it is exceptional to find a film that matches the original novel, and this isn't one of those exceptions.If you haven't read the book or seen the film, then my advice would be to see the film first, then read the book, but do read the book. That way you have every chance of enjoying both.

It's heart may be in the right place but "The Book Thief" suffers mightily from the almost impossible task of translating a book which was basically about the power of words into a medium that is often at its best when it uses as few words as possible. When an illiterate young girl is adopted by a poor but worthy German family prior to the outbreak of the second world war her desire to better herself is aided and abetted by her adoptive father. As the influence of The Party grows the family give shelter to a Jew thus endangering all of them. That's about it,really in basic terms,but the girl and the fugitive from Nazism develop a friendship and he eventually leaves the house in order to protect them all. The village is destroyed in a bombing raid and only the girl survives. In the end,a bit like in "Titanic",we see the mementoes of her long life and history. It's all very standard stuff but somehow unaffecting when we should be in floods of tears. What happened to "Death"?Here he is an almost peripheral figure whereas in the novel he binds it together and adds to our understanding of the actions of the characters. And the German accents ?They were very much of the "Ve have vays of making you talk"variety and merely distracted the viewer.We know they're supposed to be Germans,for heaven's sake,this isn't "Hallo,Hallo!" where Herr Flick of the Gestapo is going to limp in slapping his leg with his baton. Mr Rush and Miss Watson were particularly guilty of giving us 1950s British War film Germans,but then they say there's nothing like a foreign accent as a prop an actor. I did want to like "The Book Thief" and I did want to be moved by it.Unfortunately I didn't and I wasn't.