Review of The Book Thief (2013) by Lee D — 24 Apr 2014

While the story of the book thief is endearing and sad and while the acting is spot on in almost all cases, the film is not absolutely perfect. is it bad? definitely not, but there are some things that somewhat hinder it.

first of all there is a very strange element in the narrator of the story (not going to give too much away on this as it is a mild spoiler) that adds a sense of confusion at the start. by the end of the film it makes more sense but I feel it kind of retracts from the story as it progresses.

another thing that took the film down a notch for me is the length. this movie is just right at 2 hrs long which isn't tediously long by some of today's film standards but I felt that this movie could have wrapped itself up half an hour sooner and it would've been an improvement.

ultimately ,however, I feel the biggest flaw in the film is the overall emotion we are left with in the end which is just flat out depressed. this movie has little snippets of hope and happiness throughout but the film ends with a sense of tragedy as far as I'm concerned.

I think all in all it was worth the watch but I wouldn't want to watch it again. so I'd say give it a rent if you're interested but I wouldn't pay full price to own it.