Young Liesel (Sophie Nelisse) is given over to foster parents Hans (Geoffrey Rush) and Rosa (Emily Watson) after being given up by her mother, a Communist. She is picked on at school for not being able to read but finds a friend in the neighbor's boy, Rudy (Nico Liersch). Hans finds a book that Liesel stole from the gravedigger who buried her little brother and begins reading it with her. It makes more sense in the movie, trust me. Liesel soon develops an absolute love of reading, but she lives in Germany in the late 30's so good books are hard to come by, what with the Nazis burning them on every corner. She takes to "borrowing" books from the library of the local Burgermeister and his wife. Things get even more complicated when Hans shelters a Jewish boy named Max (Ben Schnetzer) in the basement in order to fulfill a debt of honor to Max's family.There have been so many movies about World War II that it must be hard to come up with new angles. This isn't a bad little movie and I would rate it much higher if it didn't have one of the most unnecessary and distracting voiceovers in the history of movies. The narrator is Death himself, voiced by Roger Allam and it is absolutely superfluous. It adds a superficially jaunty tone that is completely at odds with the story. I would even say that voiceover is the reason no one is taking it seriously this awards season.
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