The Book Theif (2013)

I've said before that we are perhaps more then a little glutted on holocaust dramas, and that may deaden us some to the impact of those horrible events. Ironically I think that The Book Thief, the film adaptation of the 2005 novel of the same name by Markus Zusak, may work because it's not trying to overwhelm us emotionally. It tells the story of Liesel Meminger (Sophie Nélisse) the daughter of a communist woman who is adopted by a middle aged couple in a small German town in 1938. The movie covers her growing up over the course of the second world war and contains a prolonged sequence where the family shelters a young Jewish man named Max Vandenburg (Ben Schnetzer), the son of a solder who saved the life of Liesel's adopted father (Geoffrey Rush, the films best performance) during the first world war. Eventually Max decides to leave his shelter with the Hubermann family for their own protection. After Max leaves Liesel and her father have a conversation about how they sheltered Max for so long, at great risks to themselves, now he's gone, they don't know if he will survive, so what does it all mean then? That moment of existential reflection, on the part of good hearted German gentiles, was the highlight of the film for me, and perhaps justification alone for its existence. This is a reflective film, and refreshing small scale for what is still a World War II epic of sorts. None the less it is more then a bit cliché and safe, though perhaps my biggest complaint is having actress Sophie Neilsse play the same character from around ages 12 - 19, she always looks the same and its distracting. Still the movie has a few moments of restrained poignancy. ***