Back Rowe Reviews
Real Time Movie Reviews from the Back Row of a Theater

The Book Thief (PG-13)

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Directed by: Brian Percival
Starring: Sophie Nelisse
November 2013

This review was originally tweeted in Real-time from the back row of a movie theater and appears @BackRoweReviews. Though efforts were made to tease rather than ruin this movie’s memorable lines and moments, some spoilers may exist in the following evaluation. The original tweets appear in black, while follow-up comments appear in red. For concerns over objectionable content, please first refer to one of the many parental movie guide websites. All ratings are based on a four star system. Happy reading!

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Beautiful shots of snow covered fields during the movie’s opening.

Acquires the first book at her brother’s funeral.

The lyrics to the kid’s choir song are horrifying. Talk about corrupting the next generation.
…with racist propaganda.

The sight of all these Nazi flags is unsettling.

A bonfire for “intellectual dirt” and a speech sure to turn your stomach.
The scary thing is that Hitler was convinced he was doing God’s work.

Leisel makes an unexpected new friend.
Okay, so this spelling of the girl’s name wasn’t underlined in red so I assumed it was the correct spelling. Apparently the “i” comes before the “e”. I changed the spelling of her name mid-movie when I saw her name written in a book.

Snowball fight in the basement is a fun scene.

Liesel learns the meaning of the word “conscripted.”
The hard way.

Story time during an air raid. Brave girl indeed.
An audience isn’t any more captive than that.

Death is “haunted by humans.”

The final twenty minutes are extremely difficult to watch.
If you made it through Schindler’s List (1993), you’ll probably be okay. Otherwise…

Final analysis: a finely mounted period piece with excellent performances and a moving narrative.
Geoffrey rush and Emily Watson are superb as Liesel’s adoptive parents and Sophie Nelisse is cherubic in the lead role.

Rating:
3 out of 4. A sobering tale that somehow manages to be uplifting at the end. Highly recommended.

A few years ago a movie entitled The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (2008) dared to show the holocaust through the eyes of a young boy. Here we see similar atrocities through the perceptions and experiences of a young girl. Though their family situations are vastly different, the children in both movies are exposed to the horrors of the systematic extermination of the Jews during WWII. Amid book burning bonfires and blitzkrieg bombings, it’s really the story of how these characters cope with the exigencies and uncertainties of the turbulent times in which they live. And, of course, if we’re talking characters, we’re also referring to the actors who portray them. Even though the temperaments of Liesel’s adoptive parents are vastly different, they’re both charming in their own way. Though Rush and Watson bring their characters to life with requisite brilliance, it’s Nelisse who steals the show as the endearing ingénue at center stage for most of the movie. Liesel’s wide-eyed wonder and innocence is an effective and poignant counterpoint to the often bleak and tragic events of the film…a film that’s not to be missed.