The Book Thief

Directed by Brian Percival

(PG-13)

**

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Genocide isn’t such a terrible thing in this “shameless piece of Oscar-seeking Holocaust kitsch,” said Stephen Holden in The New York Times. Based on a popular young-adult novel and aimed at family audiences, the film makes World War II Germany look like “the setting for a holiday greeting card” and uses “saccharinity” to camouflage the horrors of the conflict. The girl at the story’s center, played by newcomer Sophie Nélisse, “radiates klieg-light levels of wholesomeness” as she’s deposited at the home of foster parents who will teach her to read while she slowly decodes the signals that something in Germany is amiss, said Adam Markovitz in Entertainment Weekly. “It would make for a pretty ghastly pageant if not for smart, understated turns” by Emily Watson and Geoffrey Rush as the adults in the house. Books rescued from Nazi libraries and bonfires serve to connect various of the story’s kindhearted characters, and the resulting drama is “perfectly serviceable” as a heart-tugging showcase for some “accomplished performers,” said Robert Abele in the Los Angeles Times. For harder truths, you’ll have to look elsewhere.