The Book Thief

As this is a film that is narrated by Death himself (Roger Allam) you’d expect this to be a depressing sort of affair, particularly as it looks at the Second World War, genocide and all, from the German peoples own angle and specifically one young girl but oddly it isn’t. If that was its target, it missed it by a mile.

That young girl is Liesel Meminger (Sophie Nélisse) who is abandoned by her communist mother and subsequently adopted by the Hubermanns, Hans (Geoffrey Rush) and Rosa (Emily Watson). Her brother was supposed to join her but died before he got the chance.

Liesel cannot read and Hans starts to teach her, using the basement walls as a blackboard. Hans has refused to join the Nazi Party and his business suffers because of his stance, so he has plenty of time on his hands. From this Liesel develops a love of books, which is sort of difficult with the Nazis burning so many of them.

The only book she has, The Grave Digger's Handbook, came from her brother's funeral. She steals another from a Nazi book-burning ceremony and a woman who Rosa does the laundry for, Ilsa Hermann (Barbara Auer), invites her to see the vast library she has at home where she nicks another. This lasts until her visits are terminated by Ilsa's husband .

As well as exploring her relationship with books and her new parents, the film delves into her friendship with a schoolmate Rudy Steiner (Nico Liersch). Rudy thinks he's in love with her, almost as much as he is in love with the black US athlete Jesse Owens, a devotion for which he is roundly mocked at school.

Then there is Max (Ben Schnetzer), a Jewish friend of the family who is allowed to hide out in their basement, to whom Liesel reads to while he lies ill.

The story is all over the place, totally unfocused and deftly sidesteps around any topic that might have proved harrowing or exciting even. As a consequence the film lacks any real sense of tension or danger. People even die as nicely as possible and without a mark on their bodies, even if their house has collapsed on top of them.

Then there's the way the whole cast speaks in English but with pseudo German accents, throwing in the odd actual German word to hilarious effect. Make your mind up, either do it fully in English or in German with subtitles.

It is a good film ja? Nein. Sadly average.