The Book Thief (Brian Percival, 2013)

Based on Markus Zusak's successful English-language novel, The Book Thief is another addition to the list of fictionalised accounts of the war from the perspective of ordinary, decent Germans, with an orphaned girl becoming absorbed by reading illicitly purloined books with the help of her adoptive father. It ticks off all the Oscar-targeting boxes with wanton Nazi thuggery, a saintly young Jewish man sheltered by the family and aspirations to make greater statements about the nature of life and liberty, but fails to connect largely due to a combination of false notes. One has to be the variety of takes on a German accent employed by the cast, with Emily Watson's Blackadder model in the role of the foster mother being truly grating, while the overall soft-soaping of the characters and events is also quite excessive, and then there's the frankly daft decision to retain the narrative voiceover of Death musing on human behaviour from the novel too, which is just a step too far down the road of tweeness.

4/10