Welcome back to Movie Recap. Today I'm gonna show you a 2013 war drama film called,
The Book Thief. Spoiler's ahead. Sit back, relax and enjoy the video.
The movie begins in April 1938; the voice of Death is sharing its experience of coming across a child
named, Liesel Meminger. While a young Liesel is travelling on a train with her mother and younger
brother, she becomes an unwilling witness to the exact moment her younger brother dies.
This is where Death first encounters Liesel.
Following Liesel's brother s death, young Liesel is sent away to be adopted by the Hubermanns,
in Germany. Liesel's mother had to make the difficult decision to send her remaining
child away to be adopted because she is a wanted woman for being a Communist.
The Hubermanns introduce themselves as Rosa, and Hans,
to Liesel. After getting settled into her new home, Rosa instructs Liesel to call her Mama,
and Hans, Papa. In the beginning, Liesel is quiet and barely talks.
She feels incredibly lonely having to live away from her family from such a young age.
The next day, the young boy from next door knocks early at the Hubermann household.
The boy is known as, Rudy, and asks the Hubermanns to be allowed to walk with Liesel to school.
Rosa agrees and the two young children begin a close friendship.
On her first day at school, the teacher asks Liesel to write her name on the chalkboard.
Liesel, who doesn t know how to read or write yet, is only able to write three Xs on the board.
This earns Liesel ridicule from her classmates. They call her, dummkopf, or stupid, in German.
Not one to tolerate embarrassment, Liesel starts beating up one of the boys who teased her,
Franz. Liesel's boldness draws Rudy closer to her. On their way home,
Liesel cautions Rudy against getting familiar with her because she will leave soon.
Rudy just brushes her remark off as mere foolishness.
That same evening, when Hans tucks Liesel to bed, he discovers a book she has picked up from
her brother's funeral, The Gravedigger's Handbook . When he asks Liesel about it,
she lies and says it belongs to her dead brother. Hans surmises
that Liesel doesn t know how to read yet, so he takes it upon himself to teach her.
Meanwhile, during the Kristall-nacht, Max Vandenburg is being forced to separate from
his mother. At the time, being Jewish was unsafe. A friend of the Vanderburgs informs
them that they need to escape. However, only one of them is allowed, and Max's mother forces him
to go and save himself. Death notes that this is the moment that haunted Max the most in his life.
Soon after Liesel's arrival to Germany, she is inducted to join the Hitler Youth movement,
along with Rudy. During one of the induction activities for the movement, a Nazi book burning
ceremony, Liesel and Rudy are forced to throw books onto the bonfire. The savage act greatly
upsets Liesel who has developed a high regard for literature as Hans continued to tutor her.
It has been a sacred tradition between a father and his daughter that Liesel truly treasured.
When the bonfire event ends and everyone has left, Liesel runs back to the fire to grab a
book that has yet to be badly burnt. However, Liesel appears to have been caught in the act
by a woman in a car that happens to drive away. Not knowing who it was who saw her,
Liesel brushes it off and avoids thinking about the consequence of her actions.
Back at the Hubermann home, while Liesel and Hans are studying her words, a knock comes to
their door in the middle of the night. When Hans opens the door, it is Max Vandenburg
on the other side. Max falls to the floor almost immediately as he is let in the house.
When Rosa finds Max on the ground, she hurries everyone along and quickly shuts
the door. The Hubermanns put Max on the spare bed at Liesel's room to recover.
While Max sleeps, Hans takes Liesel aside to explain what is happening.
Hans makes Liesel understand that Max will be staying with their family for a while,
but that no one can know he is there. He makes Liesel promise not to tell a single soul.
In the next few days, the Hubermanns and Liesel tend to Max as he recovers from the injuries he
has taken in his travels. While sharing a room together, Max and Liesel grow close.
The two bond over their shared hatred of Hitler. Max disapproves of the fuhrer for
his many atrocities against the Jews and Liesel blames Hitler for separating her from her mother.
One day, Rosa, who works as a laundry woman asks Liesel to help her with some of her work.
She tasks her adopted daughter to take the laundry to the mayor's house.
Once there, Liesel realizes that the woman who saw
her take a book from the bonfire was none other than the Mayor's wife, Ilsa.
Instead of chastising Liesel for her unscrupulous actions on the night of the book burning event,
Ilsa shows her compassion. The mayor's wife shows fondness over Liesel's love of literature.
She even leads Liesel to her personal library filled with shelves upon shelves of books.
Before Liesel leaves, Ilsa tells her to come by anytime and read as much as her heart desires.
The more time Liesel spends with Ilsa and her library, the more she learns about the
life of the lonely Mayor's wife. Liesel asks Ilsa about the name signed inside
most of the books in the library, Johann. Ilsa explains that she once had a son named Johann,
and all the books in her library belonged to him. Liesel realizes that Ilsa feels
deeply about the loss of her son, and that the library was made to commemorate the young boy.
As Max continues to recover from his travel injuries, he begins to develop bed sores
from having to spend all day lying down. He is quickly moved from Liesel's bedroom
to the basement so he can have more room to move about. This move upsets Liesel as
she feels like Max is leaving her. But Max assures her that he is not going anywhere.
After Max moved to the basement, Liesel spends more time there with him.
They talk about the books Liesel reads at the Mayor's house. Sometimes, Max asks Liesel to
describe the outside to him. This develops Liesel's vocabulary and her storytelling.
Unfortunately for Liesel, one day, the mayor discovers her arrangement with Ilsa.
He disapproves of Ilsa and Liesel spending time at the library together,
so he puts an end to their agreement. He even dismisses Rosa as their laundry lady.
One afternoon, Liesel presents Max with a gift. A newspaper, Max is ecstatic about finding out about
the world outside. It has started snowing, and the family plays together in the snow. To be able to
involve Max, they all take snow from the outside into the basement and they bond as a family.
Liesel exclaims it to be the best Christmas she has ever had, and then it is Max's turn
to give her a gift. Max has taken his copy of the Mein Kampf but has painted over each page,
turning it into a blank book. He tells Liesel to start writing over it and make it her own.
The next day, Max falls ill over the extreme cold in the basement that has been exacerbated by the
family's snow fight. Feeling guilty about Max's condition, Liesel watches over him.
She resolves to read to Max until he gets better.
When Liesel runs out of books to read to Max, she decides to borrow some from the library.
She revisits the Mayor's house, but doesn t use the front door. Instead, she uses an unlocked
window to gain access to the library. Once inside, Liesel grabs a book to take home to read to Max.
When her plan succeeds, she gains confidence to keep doing it in the following days.
One day, while out borrowing another book from the library,
Rudy catches Liesel in the act. Rudy begs his friend to tell him what he just saw her doing,
and finally, Liesel confesses. She tells Rudy she has only been borrowing books and nothing more.
Rody gets quiet and presses his friend to tell him more. Liesel is confused about what Rudy is
asking her. He finally asks her about Max. He has covertly read her journal and found out about Max.
Liesel is shocked, and begs Rudy not to tell anybody.
As Rudy promises Liesel to keep it a secret, their school bully,
Franz, overhears. Franz pressures Rudy to divulge Liesel's secret but Rudy adamantly refuses.
Instead, Rudy throws Liesel's journal into the river to prevent Franz from ever discovering
Liesel's secret. Immediately after Franz has left, Rudy jumps into the icy river to
rescue the journal. Liesel decides she can truly trust Rudy with her family's secret.
Before Max fully recovers from being ill again, a local party member comes by the
Hubermann household to check the basement. The family scrambles to hide Max to avoid being
discovered harboring a fugitive. Thankfully, the government workers inform the Hubermanns
their house is being checked as a potential bomb shelter, and the family breathes a sigh of relief.
One day at work, Hans witnesses his friend and neighbor being violently taken away by the police
after being suspected as a Jew. Hans, out of his own goodness, tries to defend his friend
and tell the police that the man is a good German. The man begs the police to listen
and even tells them his son is in the war, fighting for Germany, but he is taken anyway.
Since Hans spoke up and defended the man in question, the soldiers took his name.
Upon the collection of his name, Hans realizes what a mistake he has made.
By speaking up, he has revealed himself a sympathizer, and it is only a matter
of time before soldiers comes knocking at his door again, looking for a fugitive.
When Hans gets back home, he regretfully tells the family what he has done. Max figures out
what it means and realizes he must leave at once to protect the Hubermanns and Liesel.
Max and Liesel tearfully say good bye to each other. Max reminds Liesel that she
will always find him in her words, and with it he will always live on.
Shortly thereafter, Rudy, too, will be taken away. He has been selected
to be part of the elite training to become a soldier. On the same day,
Hans receives summons via telegram that he has been enlisted into the army and must join
the war immediately. Liesel is devastated that once again, she is being left behind.
It did not take long for Hans to return, however. The family is reunited when he
becomes injured from the frontlines. When Liesel and Hans get a chance to catch up,
Liesel opens up to her adoptive father how miserable she feels after Max has left.
Hans comforts his daughter, and remarks at how much she has grown up.
Soon after the heartfelt moment with her father, Liesel begins writing her life story.
But before she could even finish, the city is bombed by the enemies.
Practically everyone in the neighborhood dies, including the Hubermanns.
Only Liesel was spared because she fell asleep while writing in the basement.
Next door, the neighbors pull out a badly injured Rudy from their wrecked home.
Liesel rushes to her friend's side, and he starts to tell Liesel that he loves her.
Liesel begs him to not die and finally gives him the kiss he has always begged her for.
But it's too late and he has already died.
Two years later, while Liesel is working in a tailor shop,
Max triumphantly returns to her. She is overjoyed to find him alive
and back in her life. She runs up to her friend and they embrace in reunion.
The movie ends with Death, again, continuing his story about Liesel. It is satisfied that Liesel
has lived a full life until the tender age of 90. Death says it has seen many good and bad things
over the years, but Liesel is one of the few that ever made it wonder how it would be to live life.