No One Lives Forever

Rating: 8/10 (26 May 2014)

In 1938, the young girl Liesel Meminger (Sophie Nélisse) is traveling by train with her mother and her younger brother when he dies. Her mother buries the boy in a cemetery by the tracks and Liesel picks up a book, "The Gravediggers Handbook", which was left on the grave of her brother and brings it with her. Liesel is delivered to a foster family in a small town and later she learns that her mother left her because she is a communist. Her stepmother, Rosa Hubermann (Emily Watson), is a rude but caring woman and her stepfather, Hans Hubermann (Geoffrey Rush), is a simple kind-hearted man. Liesel befriends her next door neighbor, the boy Rudy Steiner (Nico Liersch), and they go together to the school. When Hans discovers that Liesel cannot read, he teaches her using her book and Liesel becomes an obsessed reader. During a Nazi speech where the locals are forced to burn books in a bonfire, Liesel recovers one book for her and the Major's wife Ilsa Hermann (Barbara Auer) witnesses her action. Meanwhile Hans hides the Jewish Max Vandenburg (Ben Schnetzer), who is the son of a deceased friend that saved his life in the war, in the basement of his house and Liesel becomes his friend. One day, Rosa asks Liesel to deliver laundry to the Major and Ilsa invites Liesel to go to her library and tells that she can visit her to read whenever she wants. But in times of war there are many threats and the lives of Liesel, her family and friends will never be the same.
"The Book Thief" is an American-German production with a beautiful, sensitive and heartbreaking story of love, friendship and obsession for reading books in one of the darkest period of mankind history. The screenplay is original, with Death narrating the plot. One important point of this movie is that it is not about the Holocaust like most of the war dramas. Liesel, Hans, Rosa, Rudy, Ilsa are German common people with feelings, fearing and suffering and eventually dying but they do not necessarily agree with what the Nazi do. The performances are top-notch, highlighting Geoffrey Rush, Sophie Nélisse and Emily Watson. My vote is eight.
Title (Brazil): "A Menina que Roubava Livros" ("The Girl Who Stole Books")