Books vs. Movies
In this podcast we set out to answer the age old question: is the book really always better than the movie?
Books vs. Movies
Ep. 51 The Book Thief by Markus Zusak vs. The Book Thief (2013)
Death has never been so captivated by a human as he is by Liesel Meminger, a young girl navigating the treacherous landscape of Nazi Germany with stolen books as her compass. When Death first encounters Liesel at her brother's gravesite, he watches her pilfer her first treasure – The Gravedigger's Handbook – marking the beginning of her journey as the Book Thief.
Words become Liesel's salvation in a world determined to burn them. After arriving at the home of her foster parents, Hans and Rosa Huberman, she finds an unexpected ally in Hans, who patiently teaches her to read in their basement during late-night sessions. As Nazi ideology tightens its grip on their small town of Molching, Liesel's hunger for books grows. She begins stealing them from wherever she can – Nazi book burnings, the mayor's wife's library – each stolen volume a small act of rebellion against the regime that took her biological mother.
The stakes escalate dramatically when the Hubermans hide Max Vandenburg, a Jewish refugee, in their basement. The dangerous secret creates an unbreakable bond between Max and Liesel, united by their understanding of words' power to both destroy and heal. While Hitler uses language to incite hatred, Max and Liesel exchange stories to survive. Their friendship becomes the emotional heart of both Markus Zusak's acclaimed novel and its 2013 film adaptation starring Sophie Nélisse, Geoffrey Rush, and Emily Watson.
Though the film makes several notable changes – simplifying some relationships and softening certain blows – both versions powerfully illustrate how literature provides refuge during humanity's darkest hours. The story culminates in the devastating bombing of Himmel Street, a moment that transforms everything for Liesel but cannot destroy the stories she's collected. Through Death's unique narration, we witness how words, whether stolen, shared, or written, ultimately save Liesel when nothing else can. Discover why this tale continues to resonate with readers and viewers alike as we compare the book to its film adaptation and explore which version most powerfully delivers this unforgettable story.
All episodes of the podcast can be found on our website: https://booksvsmovies.buzzsprout.com/share
Connect with me: Instagram | Threads | Bookshop | Goodreads | Blog
Welcome to Books vs Movies, the podcast where I set out to answer the age-old question is the book really always better than the movie? I'm Yuvia, an actress and book lover based out of New York City, and today I will be talking about the Book Thief by Marcus Zusak and its 2013 adaptation, the Book Thief, starring Sophie Nolese, jeffrey Rush and directed by Brian Percival. Okay, hi everyone, I did not again. I meant to record the book thief and have it ready to go immediately after Two Kisses for Maddie, but I had to wait for the diggity to come in from the library and then, once it did come in, I kind of put watching it on hold until the play was over. I spent all of last week just focusing 100% on the play. So that's what I did, and now that it's over, I'm really sad. I had such a good experience, like a really, really great experience working on that show, and I'm really sad that it's over, like more sad than I think I have been for shows closing. Like I'm always sad when they close, but this time, like I'm really really feeling that post show low and I know the reason for that, but I'm not going to get into it here because this is not the time or the place, but I just wanted to share that.
Speaker 1:It went really really well. We got really really good feedback. People seemed to really enjoy it, and so this was my first time playing a mom. I usually play like much younger than me or someone not too much, but definitely not like a mom and a lot of people totally bought that I was a mom. So that's like such a compliment and it's one of those things like when people would see me next to Danny, who played my son, they'd be like you guys look like your siblings, but when you were on stage I totally bought that you were his mom. So it's like, well, that's good. But anyway, yeah, I'm just really looking forward to working with Terry, the playwright, and Catalina, the director, and Molly and Danny my fellow actors again, and I am willing this into existence because I really want to work with all of them again and it's going to happen. It's going to happen.
Speaker 1:But anyway, let's go ahead and get started with the Book Thief. So the Book Thief by Markus Zusak was first published in 2005. And it starts off in 1939, nazi Germany, and we are following death, yes, literal death. Death is the narrator of the story, but our main character, more so than death, is actually Liesl Memminger. Death first meets Liesl after her brother dies. He goes to the gravesite to pick up her brother's soul, and he sees her steal her first book, called the Gravedigger's Handbook. It is with this first book theft that Liesel starts her love of books and reading and words, and once she arrives at her foster parent's house, her foster father teaches her how to read, and soon enough, she's stealing books from Nazi book burnings, the mayor's wife's library pretty much anywhere she can find a book. She steals it. This is Nazi Germany, though, and while her foster parents put up a front, they are not in 100% agreement. They're not in agreement, actually, actually at all with the Nazis. They have to put up a front, otherwise their lives are in danger, but they actually take in a Jew and hide him in their basement, and it is this Jew that turns Liesel's life upside down. This is a beautifully written book. It's one of my favorites, and I'm so excited to be bringing it to the podcast today.
Speaker 1:The 2013 adaptation of the Book Thief is directed by Brian Percival and stars Sophie Nelisse, jeffrey Rush and Emily Watson, and this takes place during World War II Germany. A young girl named Lise Memminger finds solace by stealing books and sharing them with others. Meanwhile, in her basement, a Jewish refugee is protected by her and her adoptive parents. So overall, this is it's not a bad adaptation, it's a pretty faithful adaptation. This book is, I want to say, 500 pages. It's about 500 pages, yeah, and the film is two hours long. So it fits a lot, but it still does not fit a lot of. There's still only so much you can fit with a 500 page book. Like 500 pages is a lot to try to fit into a two hour film. And they do manage to slip in a lot, but they don't slip in everything. So let's go ahead and get started.
Speaker 1:So yes, our narrator for both the book and the film is death, actual death, literal death, and he gets, I mean, it makes more sense. It's easier for him to narrate all of the book from his point of view because it doesn't detract from our main protagonist, which is Liesel. In the film he does, do you do hear him narrate the story, but he pops in and out a lot less frequently than he does in the book. Like the book is literally told from his point of view, but the film can't really do that, since our main character is Liesel and we kind of need to focus on just her. But anyway, so, yes, rosa, who is Liesel's foster mom, adoptive mom, I guess it's technically her foster mom, but I don't think Liesel ever gets officially adopted. But for all intents and purposes she is adopted, maybe not legally, but she is adopted by the Hubermans, rosa and Hans Huberman and in the book. Well, in both.
Speaker 1:Rosa does laundry. That's how. Hans is a painter, so he goes around painting buildings. Rosa does laundry for the town and she has select customers. Little by little they all fire her because this is Nazi Germany. Times are tough financially, so people start letting her go. The last person to let her go in the book is the mayor's wife, and it's kind of like everyone else. The mayor kind of just decides we can't afford laundry service anymore. It doesn't matter that I'm the mayor, the richest man in town can't afford laundry service, so we're canceling it. So that's how Rosa ends up losing her job. It comes very unexpectedly. No one ever would have thought that the mayor and his wife would cancel their laundry service. But they do.
Speaker 1:In the film, though they make it seem more like. So the mayor's wife and Liesel do strike up a friendship in both the book and the film. But in the film the mayor catches Liesel in the library. So after Liesel starts stealing books the mayor's wife lets her into the library and Liesel's allowed to come over whenever she wants and just read from the books in the library. And in the film the mayor catches or finds Liesel in the library and is kind of like what is the meaning of this? And the mayor's wife is like oh you know, just no reason. And then so he ends up firing Rosa after that. So it's kind of hinted that Liesel like he's not comfortable with Liesel spending time with his wife in his home, in his home library. So that's why Rosa gets fired. But in the book there really is no rhyme or reason. It's just things are tough financially even for the mayor and his wife, and so Rosa gets fired before all this.
Speaker 1:So what happens is, as I said, liesel does steal the gravedigger's handbook when, after her brother dies and the second time she steals a book is actually at a Nazi book burning. So the whole town gathers for Hitler's birthday and they have a book burning in his honor and Liesel finds a book that was not engulfed by the flames. So she steals that. The only person to see her steal the book is the mayor's wife. And that is what the mayor's wife sees like whoa, this girl's risking her life to read a book and that's what prompts her to befriend Liesl and invite her into the library.
Speaker 1:But in the book, or in both, liesl starts recognizing, before the book burning happens, one of the Nazi leaders is giving a speech denouncing communists and communism, and that's a word that Liesl recognizes that people were using against her mom or was being used to describe her mom. So she kind of puts two and two together, like, oh, my mom is not with me anymore because she was a communist. And so she asks her father like is my mom a communist? Is she not here because of her communism? And Hans admits that that's the truth. And so obviously Liesl gets upset and she says I hate Hitler, I hate him. And this prompts Hans to slap her and say you are never to say that out loud, ever again, don't you dare say that. You are only allowed to say Heil Hitler. And he teaches her how to salute properly and he tells her basically never to say that she hates Hitler again and to only say Heil Hitler, and in the film this does not happen.
Speaker 1:Hans does not hit her. Yeah, this is just not like he finds her and she asks the questions and everything, but he doesn't physically punish her for expressing her opinion. So I mean, hans is definitely the more lenient parent between him and Rosa, but I kind of wish that they had kept this. I don't want to see a child getting beaten on screen. But the reason why he hits her is important. It's literally to protect her. To protect her from getting sent away, from getting killed. So this is the only time he ever puts his hands on her and it's because he's scared that she's going to say this in front of someone that she shouldn't. And she's dead, she's gone, she's killed, whatever. So, yeah, I did miss that moment in the film.
Speaker 1:So Max is the Jew that comes to live with them and hide out in the basement, and that story is that Hans served with Max's father during the first world war. They met, they became friends and then he was like you know, if you ever need anything, a favor or anything, just find me and I will help you out. Max's father ends up dying and but he ends up telling like his wife, like, if you ever need help, like, reach out to my friend, this is his name blah, blah, blah. And so that many, many years down the line, max is the one that ends up getting his father's debt repaid from Hans, or by Hans, or yeah, however, whatever the correct phrasing for that is. So that's how Max ends up living with the Hubermans in their basement and again, it's one of those things where Hans, when Max shows up, he tells Lisa like it, anyone, you cannot tell anyone that this man is staying here with us. It's extremely dangerous. And she promises and she keeps that promise. By the time she ends up breaking the promise and tells Rudy, her best friend, that they were hiding Max. Max is long gone. So there comes a point in which Hans well, max has to go away at some point. I will bring this up when we get there, but in well, I guess I'll bring it up now. So Liesl tells Rudy about Max in the film, when Max is still staying with them. So she breaks her promise in the film.
Speaker 1:In the book she doesn't break her promise, she keeps it until Max is no longer there, and that's because Rudy gets suspicious. So what happens is that Max has to leave in the book. So this takes place in Molking in Germany, which is, I believe it's made up for the book. But this takes place in a town called Molking and it's kind of on the way to the concentration camp Dachau. So sometimes Jews will be marched through the town on their way to Dachau and in the book one of the Jews falls down and he's not getting up and he's getting whipped by one of the Nazi officers. And Hans can't take it anymore and he helps the Jew up and so he gets punished. He starts getting whipped for that and obviously this is a huge mistake. Hans has just put him and his family in danger by helping this Jew out.
Speaker 1:They also have Max hidden in their basement, like this is him doing? This is basically him confirming that he's a traitor to Nazi Germany, and so he's expecting someone to come to their house and search every nook and cranny to continue proving that he's a traitor, so that they can therefore punish him. So Max is sent away. The plan is for him to be sent away for a few days and then, once their home is inspected from top to bottom by these German officers that they think are going to show up, then they're going to bring Max back to the basement and he can continue hiding out. However, max is like leaves a note where they told him to wait and he says you've put your lives in danger for me too much already and I'm just going to head out on my own. Thank you so much for hiding me for as long as you did.
Speaker 1:So he leaves and so in the film, like Rudy, he finds Max's like fake passport that he used to get him from where he lived. I believe he's originally from Berlin, germany. So he finds Max's fake passport that allowed him to travel from Berlin to Malking. It's obviously fake, not identifying him as a Jew or anything. So Rudy finds this and confronts Liesel and Liesel at that point admits that they're hiding a Jew in their basement. So she, as I said, she breaks her promise and ends up telling Rudy in the film, but in the book she does not.
Speaker 1:So in the book she does end up telling him only after Max is long gone, because now every single time Jews are marked through molking on their way to Dachau. She runs up and down the group looking at every face, just trying to see if Max is among this group of men being taken to Dachau. So the first time after Max leaves and the first set of Jews are marched on their way there. She's doing this and she gets in trouble with German officers, obviously because they're like what are you doing in there? Get away from there. And so Rudy's like what the hell are you doing? Like why are you? Like? You're like what are you doing? Like why are you running into this group of Jews? And like you're clearly searching for something or someone, like what was that about? At that point Liesl says, listen, we were hiding a Jewish man in our basement and I just I couldn't help but look for him now that he's not with us anymore. And so Rudy's like all right, I gotcha, that makes so much sense. Like a lot of things, looking back, make a lot of sense now because of the way you acted or reacted towards certain things. So that's what happens. That's how Rudy ends up finding out about Max. So, yeah, in one of them he finds out well, well, max is technically still there, but he's a good boy and doesn't tell anyone. And in the actual book, liesel keeps that secret until Max is gone. So yeah, so that's how Hans gets in trouble in the book. He assists a Jew that falls as they're being marched to Dachau In the film.
Speaker 1:How he ends up getting in trouble, though, is that there is a man who lives in the town of Mokhin and he has a shop. He's a shopkeeper, and the Nazis show up one day and start arresting him because they find out that he forged documents. And it turns out that he's a Jew. And so they show up to arrest him, and he's begging all the townspeople like please help me. Like you know who I am. Like yes, I'm a Jew, but you also know who I am. You know, you know me, you know who, like you've lived with me all these years and you know that I'm a good person. You know they haven't done anything wrong. You know that I don't deserve to be treated this way just because I'm a Jew. And the only one that stands up for him is Hans Huberman. So that's how Hans gets in trouble in the film. So he's assisting a friend, as opposed to a stranger In the film.
Speaker 1:Alex Steiner, who's Rudy's father, is conscripted to go in the army, and there isn't really any other reason other than he's been tasked with joining the military. So he has to go, and other than he's been tasked with joining the military, so he has to go. In the book what ends up happening is that Alex, so there's just like a group of like Nazi doctors, I guess, that show up to Liesel and Rudy's school and they're there to examine Rudy and some other boys that have shown a lot of promise, whether that be physically, mentally, basically like the cream of the crop, like these are the boys that, should they pass the inspection, are like the perfect example of Nazi youth and they're going to be sent away to continue their training. Yeah, so they're getting physically examined. Rudy's chosen as like this is like he's blonde, he's blue eyed, he's very physically fit, he's like perfect, we want this kid to come join our Nazi academy and the Steiners say no, he's not going. And so, in punishment for them denying Rudy, alex is then forced to join the military and goes off into the war. So, yeah, in the film it's kind of just like. It kind of just happens he's not really being punished, from what I saw, but in the book it's definitely a punishment. And those Nazi officers do end up coming in the film as well, but they don't do the inspection, they just show up and they're like we're going to take your son. And it's just Rudy's mom, mrs Steiner, there and she's just like she can't really do anything except say yes. So Rudy is expected to leave at the end of the summer in the film but in the book he's never. His parents do not give permission for them to take their son, so he's not at risk of leaving at the end of the summer.
Speaker 1:So at some point the threat of Malkin getting bombed increases. So they start inspecting people's basements and kind of determining like this is a good fallout shelter, this is not a good fallout shelter. And so they determined that the Huberman's basement is not a good fallout shelter. So they, anytime there's like a bomb warning, they have to go to one of their neighbor's house and in the book Liesl carries a book with her everywhere she goes. So at one point people are really starting to panic and Hans tells Liesl to read her book to distract everyone and keep them calm. So that's what she does. She reads to them In the book they go into like bomb shelters several times, but they keep it to just twice.
Speaker 1:The first time they go down to the bomb shelter, hans takes his accordion with him and he plays the accordion to keep everyone distracted. So the second time they end up in the bomb shelter. So Hans does end up getting punished for helping the Jew out and his punishment is also to he's forced to join the military. But he's on bomb cleanup duties. He's just as much in danger as if he were in the front lines, basically because he's cleaning up bombs, but like a bomb can fall on him at any time, but anyway. So at this point in the film he's already gone, he's enlisted, he's off cleaning up bombs somewhere, not in Malking and Liesel remembers how his accordion playing kept everyone calm. So she decides to tell a story and in the book, as I said, she actually reads from the books that she takes from the mayor's wife's library. But in the film she makes up a story and she just continues adding to the story until it's safe for everyone to leave. So that's what happens.
Speaker 1:And in the book Hans and Rosa have two children, trudy and Hans Jr, and they're not like that important. So I can see why they're not included in the film. But they do add a nice conflict because Hans and Rosa are, as I said, they're not, they don't agree with the Nazis and Hans Jr is very much like a huge Hitler fan. So this causes a lot of tension between him and his father and at one point Hans Jr ends up cutting off all contact with his parents and this breaks Rosa's heart because at the end of the day, that's still her son. So yeah, they're not really important, but just something I wanted to add, because Hans Jr does add that little bit of drama due to his and his father's differing political beliefs.
Speaker 1:So after Rosa is fired, in the book, liesel one day angrily confronts the mayor's wife and calls her a coward and is like how could you fire my mother? Like it's not cool that you did that. You're weak, but you're like an awful woman, blah, blah, blah. And so after, like, liesel is pissed off at the mayor's wife and after she confronts her is when she starts stealing books from the mayor's wife. And after she confronts her is when she starts stealing books from the mayor's wife. And eventually the mayor's wife figures out what's going on, because she starts looking for certain books and she can't find them. And then Liesl goes. In order not to make any noise, liesl takes off her shoes. So Elsa, the mayor's wife, starts seeing like footprints on the floor, and then she's like she puts them two together and she's like okay, liesl is coming in and stealing books for me and at one point she leaves a dictionary as bait, making it really easy for Liesl to steal.
Speaker 1:So Liesl steals the dictionary and inside there's a note from Olsen and it basically says like stop stealing my books. Like you're still welcome. I know like you don't respect me. You think that I'm a coward, you think that I'm weak for firing your mama. I'm sorry that I had to do that, but I hoped that you would have a lot more respect for me, just like I have a lot more respect for you and you're still welcome to come into my library anytime you want. So I would appreciate it if you stop stealing my books. But if you just cannot help yourself and you have to keep stealing my books, like at least come in through the front door, just knock, come in, take a book and leave, stop like sneaking in through the window. So Liesel's like so there does end up being a sort of understanding after Liesel reads this note from the mayor's wife and there's like that mutual respect from this point on between Liesel and the wife and so in the book while Max is still there.
Speaker 1:So one of the ways that he gets into molking is that Hans buys a copy of Hitler's book Mein Kampf and cuts out some of the pages and in the hollow page area he puts a key to his house, so that way Max can just like once Max shows up, he doesn't need to knock, he doesn't need to do anything. So in the film he does knock and Hans lets him in, but in the book he's given a key so he can just let himself in. And then, once he lets himself in, they still have the conversation of like. The code word is like do you still play the accordion? And that's how they know that he's found the right place and Hans knows that that's the right person that he's set out to help.
Speaker 1:But while he's there, max and Liesl end up becoming really good friends and for one Christmas Max ends up taking the copy of Mein Kampf and the parts that are not hollowed out. He paints over them with like just one of Hans Huberman's white paint that he has. He paints over all the pages, he paints them white and then he writes his own story for Liesl in Mein Kampf, and that's what he ends up giving Liesl as a Christmas present. In the film, though, he does the same thing. He still paints out the pages of Mein Kampf and then he gives it to her as a blank notebook and he tells Liesl to write her own stories. The person who actually gives Liesl the notebook is Elsa, the mayor's wife. So Liesl shows up at some point and Elsa's like you have such a like you love reading so much, you should try writing your own story. So she gives Liesl the notebook so Liesl can write her story in her own words.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I kind of wish that they had kept Max as giving her a book that he wrote, because he writes. It's one of those things where when he first arrives, he gets very, very sick and he's kind of out of it for several days and they're scared that he's going to die and so he hears a lot of things that Liesel says to describe him, but she doesn't realize that he's overhearing her and so he writes down this. It's very personalized towards Liesel and the things she's said about Max. So I kind of wish they had kept that and I really wish that they had kept it as the mayor's wife giving Liesel the book, giving Liesel the notebook, because there is that mutual respect and understanding and there is a friendship there between the two of them that's formed. So I feel like you just don't see as much of the friendship Like. The friendship between Max and Liesel is very, very strong in the film the way it is in the book, but it isn't that strong between Elsa and Liesel and I kind of wish that they had kept it, because, well, here's why.
Speaker 1:So now we have reached the major, major, major, major spoilers of this book, slash film, and that is, I mean, this takes place in Nazi Germany, middle of World War II, and we I mean there's a reason I kept bringing up bomb shelters. So Liesl's street ends up getting bombed and she is the only survivor and she survives because she's in her basement. So the basement is kind of her sanctuary. That's where Hans teaches her how to read and he teaches her how to write. When Max is initially, when Max first arrives, as I said, he's very sick, so he's sleeping in the same room as Liesl in a separate bed, and then, once he's well enough to like go to the basement. He then lives in the basement until he has to leave. So Liesel spends a lot of time down there getting to know him and befriending him, and so it's her sanctuary. So when Ilse gives her the notebook to write her story, she writes in the basement and there are no sirens, there's absolutely no warning.
Speaker 1:No one expects these bombs to go off and kill everyone, but Liesl just so happens to be in the basement. She falls asleep while she's writing and, despite the basement being labeled as too shallow, it ends up being perfect because she survives. She's the only survivor of her entire street. So in the book she finds a pipe that she starts banging on and that's how the cleanup crew finds her. In the film the accordion is close to her, so she starts making noises on the accordion and that's how they find her. But yeah, in the book it's by pipe. So when Liesel is pulled out of the basement, everyone is dead Her parents, rudy, her best friend, everyone on her street is dead, and in the film she just Rosa and Hans are dead. And then she sees Rudy getting pulled out of the rubble and he's still alive, and then he starts to tell her something and then he dies before he can tell it to her. But in the book he's already dead. So she doesn't get to interact with anyone. She doesn't get to say goodbye to anyone after she is rescued. So yeah, and that's how the book thief ends.
Speaker 1:So it is a really, really powerful book and it's one of those things that I actually read it when I was in high school and I did not like it. I was like, oh gosh, what is this Like? This seems like something I should really really like and I don't like, I hate this. This is awful. And then I had to read it again in undergrad because I took a young adult fiction class just as a random elective. So I was like I was like this sounds fun. I get to read a lot of books. I need to be a full-time student in order to keep my scholarship, so let's do it. So I took that class for fun and we had to read the Book Thief and I remember initially I was dreading it. I was like ugh, I did not like this book. And then I reread it for the class and I ended up absolutely loving it and now it's one of my favorite books. So yeah, and I remember I wrote that in my essay when I was talking about the Book Thief. And so after we read a book, we had to write an essay for my English class Makes sense, and I remember mentioning it in my essay, like I hated this book when I students and even middle school students, and I think, despite its young adult label, it's a little bit too nuanced for a lot of high school students and especially for middle school students.
Speaker 1:So I think I have to agree with her because I really just did not. It did not speak to me at all as a high school student. Maybe I'm not saying it doesn't speak to any high school students out there, but I think it's definitely. Despite its young adult label, I feel like it's definitely a lot more adult and there's so many things I missed reading it in high school that I understood as an adult and I mean I wasn't like too much older than I was when I initially read it, but I mean those several years like did make a difference in my understanding the book. So just want to throw that out there.
Speaker 1:But yeah, one of the big, big reasons I really missed the friendship between Elsa and Liesel in the film is because after Malking, himmel Street on Malking is bombed and so Himmel means heaven in German, and it's. This is stated in the book, but in the film, for whatever reason, they straight up named it Heaven Street. It's not Himmel Street, it's literally called Heaven Street. So I don't know, I feel like they could have added it. It could have been like Himmel means heaven and then kept the street name as Himmel, but whatever, but anyway, yeah, so after Elsa finds out that there's one survivor and then it's a girl on Himmel Street, she rushes to Himmel Street to see who the survivor is, and when she sees that it's Liesl, she's very relieved and happy that it's Liesl. And so Liesl ends up getting taken in by the mayor and his wife and she lives with them from that point on.
Speaker 1:So I really in the film, like Elsa and the mayor do show up to Himal Street or to Heaven Street and they take in the rubble and the damage, and then Liesl goes up to her and hugs her and then she gets in the car and it comes out a little bit more out of nowhere, like, yes, it is established that there is this connection there. But it's also like if I was watching the film without having read the book, I would. I mean, I guess you could say like any good person would take in a child who just lost everything. No matter, I don't care who you are, you would do that, but it's still in the book. There's just that added connection of, like. Liesl lost everyone and everything and Elsa is now the only person that she has left, so it's a lot more powerful, I guess, to know that she's not alone. Yeah, so the acting is fantastic.
Speaker 1:We have Sophie Nelis. I know her most recently from Yellow Jackets, if you've seen that on Showtime. It's about the group of female soccer players that get stranded in the woods and eventually have to turn to cannibalism. That is not a spoiler, it's revealed in the first episode, but anyway, but yeah, so I know her most recently from that. But this was my first time seeing her ever in the Book Thief.
Speaker 1:So in the Book Thief it's interesting because it's one of those films that, like was not advertised at all when it came out in 2013. It was one of those things where I was like looking at the movie times because I've always loved going to the movies and I think my mom was like I don't know if I invited my mom or my mom invited me, but we both love going to the movies. So my mom was like, well, go pick out a movie, and I happened to. It was just listed there under the movie times. It was like the book thief and I was like there's a film adaptation of the book thief, what? So I was like, well, we're definitely watching that. And we did, and we both really, really liked it. And then, of course, I bought the DVD. But the DVD is back in Texas so I had to check it out from the library here. But yeah, it's really interesting because there was no advertisement for this.
Speaker 1:Like I had no idea there was going to be a Book Thief adaptation. I kind of like I said found it by chance, because my mom was like, do you want to go to the movies? And I said sure, and I saw it. And like I wasn't even sure if it was going to be the Book Thief adaptation, but I was like I feel like the probability of this being an actual adaptation are pretty high. I highly doubt there would be a film called the Book Thief that has nothing to do with the book. So there was that. But yeah, so I really really liked it and this is, I mean, despite the things I said, it is a pretty faithful adaptation. Yeah, and then yeah, so that's how I ended up watching it. I did watch it the year it was released in theaters. Yeah, so this time around, I mean I didn't mind. It wasn't necessarily something that I intended on bringing to the podcast at this point in time, but part of this was to fulfill my pop sugar reading challenge prompt of read a book with book and the title or a book on the cover, and this is. I was like let's go with the book thief, let's bring it to the podcast and yeah, so that's how that ended up here. But anyway, jeffrey Rush and Emily Watson as Hans and Rosa, like really really great, fantastic casting.
Speaker 1:This film also has like pretty terrible critical reviews. Like I think it has like a 38% critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but it has a 78% audience rating. So the audience definitely liked it a lot more than the critics did and I can't really figure out why the critics hated it so much because I think it's good. I mean I really, and like my mom, having never read the book, really liked it because I think it's good. I mean I really, and like my mom, having never read the book, really liked it and I showed it to like my brother-in-law and my sister-in-law and they really liked it as well. So yeah, I don't know, but this got like terrible critic reviews. But I think, if I mean, ignore the critic reviews, watch it, check it out. If you like the book, check it out as well, because it is pretty solid.
Speaker 1:I mean, I can see why the changes were made. I don't necessarily agree with all of them, but I can see why certain changes were made. And it's not like it's called the Book Thief and it says it's a book thief adaptation. And then it's like what the hell is this like? I don't know the Giver, but anyway, I will bring that at some point, but I promise, but that adaptation just fills me with so much rage I can't even. I can't even. Okay, anyway, moving on, so yeah, so I would definitely recommend both.
Speaker 1:So, that being said, I rated the book four stars and I rated the film four stars. Is it a tie? No, I, despite the fact that I rated them four stars, I do still think there's a winner and the winner is the book. It has to be the book. The film is still really, really great and if you are reading a verse, you should still check out the film and get the story in this way. But if you love to read, I highly recommend the book. There's just so much more nuance and juicy bits and things that cannot be added to the film, that are in the book. It's just so good, highly, highly, highly recommended.
Speaker 1:But that is it for this episode of Books vs Movies. I am in the process of reading two books well, a book and a series of books for upcoming episodes. So I am still working on it, but it won't be next week. It won't be like an episode that comes out next week, but anyway, thank you for tuning in. If you like this podcast, please leave a rating and a review. Let me know what you think, share with all your friends. Let's spread the word for this podcast. I really want to increase my listenership and it helps a lot if you let your friends know all about it. That being said, that's it. I will see you next time. Bye.