Movie – The Book Thief

The second movie I’ve watched based in the war era but what a wondrous film! Better than I expected.It opens with a mother taking her two young children on a dingy train journey but one dies en route. We only know later that the daughter, Liesel, is going to be ‘adopted’ (read taken in) by a couple without children. They were expecting two and I was worried for the remaining child with the way she was abruptly treated when her new mother realised there was only one. But the film then open’s into a gorgeous story as her new father doted on her and she befriends a jolly, local boy, Rudy. Narrated by ‘Death’, this is a different side to a war film, for we are in Nazi Germany, when they were fully expecting to win the war. As the war goes on, the army start recruiting older men and Liesel’s father is drafted while her new best friend is selected for the young Elite academy.Unable to read when she arrived, Liesel is getting help from her foster-father and is soon consumed by books.What strikes me, apart from the perfect-looking cute children, are the friendships Liesel builds; with the boy next door, her parents, the Jewish man they take in to hide and the mayor’s wife, who happens to have a stunning library full of books banned by the Nazis.8/10Smile factor 8½/10Coffee rating: Mocca