Hollywood, it seems, will never tire of adapting beloved young adult novels into films. With "The Hunger Games" (2012) sequel "Catching Fire" expected to roar into theaters this weekend, "Ender's Game" in the midst of its run and titles like "Divergent" and "The Fault in Our Stars" scheduled to be released in 2014, young adult fiction has never been more in vogue. "The Book Thief" is simply another item on this very long list.
When Australian author Markus Zusak published "The Book Thief" in 2005, he captured the imagination of young readers and, with more than 230 weeks on the New York Times' Best Seller list, "The Book Thief" catapulted to commercial success.
Unfortunately, the movie is less worthy of such high praise. Like the novel, the film tells the story of Liesel Meminger (Sophie N?lisse), a young girl growing up in Nazi Germany, who is sent to live with foster parents after her mother is no longer able to care for her. Liesel cannot read when she arrives, but her kindly adoptive father, Hans Huberman (Geoffrey Rush), soon teaches her. As Liesel becomes enamored with books, she also adapts to her new home. She makes friends with a neighborhood boy named Rudy (Nico Liersch), learns a family secret and participates in her local Hitler Youth organization.
Although "The Book Thief" offers beautiful cinematography and delightful performances by the adult actors, it ultimately fails to reproduce the magic that made the novel so compelling. Of course, it's not fair or particularly reasonable to judge the merits of a film simply by comparing it to the novel on which it is based, but the principal flaw of "The Book Thief" is not poor adaptation but rather structural choices that do not work well on screen.
"The Book Thief" is a sprawling work and, consequently, struggles with the same problems that often plagued the Harry Potter films: The movie attempts to cram so many storylines into its 131 minutes that no single plot is sufficiently explored or developed. "The Book Thief" leaves viewers feeling somewhat unsatisfied, and significant relationships - especially the integral one between Liesel and the mayor's goodhearted wife (Barbara Auer) - lack natural or believable development. The movie also follows the novel's example by using Death as its narrator - yet this technique falls flat, confusing an audience who may be unfamiliar with the source material. Voiceovers rarely work well on screen, and "The Book Thief" is no exception to the rule.
"The Book Thief" was directed by Brian Percival, who has helmed several episodes of the acclaimed "Downton Abbey" (2010-present), which may explain why the film feels, at times, excessively neat. The cinematography is just a bit too beautiful, unable to effectively capture the bleakness and distress of life in Nazi Germany. The movie, however, appears to occur in a perpetual winter, which may have been Percival's attempt to depict the grim circumstances. While making "The Book Thief" extremely graphic would not have been appropriate given its young target audience, the movie certainly should have spent more time showing instead of telling. Rosa Hubermann (Emily Watson), Liesel's new mother, frequently mentions how little food the family has, but there are no visible manifestations of this. Liesel seems perfectly healthy and robust - as do other children - and there is always food on the kitchen table. Surely it would not have been terribly difficult to make a few small changes in order to present a more believable and consistent image.
However, "The Book Thief" does have its redeeming qualities. Rush and Watson are charming as odd couple Hans and Rosa - and their relationships with Liesel, which progress in vastly different ways, are depicted with endearing sweetness. Liesel's character, while less developed than it could be, is lovable and her journey is an important one for young audiences to witness. As she grows up in these grim circumstances, Liesel comes to understand that the world can be an unhappy place - even an evil place - filled with hurt, confusion and loss. This point is driven home unforgivingly in the film's conclusion, which fans of the book will remember as a tragic one. Though the didactic message is taken to an extreme, Liesel's story still remains appropriate for young viewers.12
