The Book Thief

As expected: the voiceover was terrible, the acting failed to communicate the gravity of the book, everything was watered down for mass consumption, and more than anything the story lost a whole lot of interest by losing its narrator. This movie is so run-of-the-mill, while the book was remarkable.

It wasn't the child actors' fault. Liesel and Rudy were actually great, and aligned with the spirit of their literary counterparts. That's an achievement for literary adaptation. Somehow bringing in the big guns, in Geoffrey Rush, was actually one of the worst dissonances with the book, while the immature amateurs were total victories. Rush was nice in his own way but he wasn't Hans.

Without the prose narration, the story is basic. I wouldn't bat an eye at this movie if I hadn't read the book. I was just curious how they did it.

The voiceover was garbage work, like the voice acting I just talked about in Aguirre. How can professionals get away with that trash. Granted I don't know how you'd voice this narrator. But this is not the answer. No voiceover at all would have been superior. This is the cheesiest voiceover you could have chosen: old cheesy British guy. What a dumb idea.

Movies never understand how to capture the spirit of the book. The obliteration at the end is shocking in the book but not confusing in terms of tone. In the movie, it's tonally confusing, a critical sin. The movie waters down so many aspects of the book, it doesn't understand how to handle the end which can't be watered down -- everybody dies. So it just kind of skirts by it. The movie figures we can't handle the sight of Hans hitting Liesel, or being whipped by a Nazi, but it shows us everyone Liesel loves dying violently, and pretends it's peaceful, and promptly moves on. Filmmakers should know better. Who are they making this movie for?

Other than the voiceover and not understanding how to handle hard thematic material, it actually executed pretty well. I was pleased when it started: the production quality was working, Liesel was great, they really polished a nice movie. But that's all it was -- polish on the most basic interpretation of the story. It totally failed to deliver the artistry of the book. I'm not surprised.

Really like the German accents. Would have preferred full German, but that was a great touch.