'The Book Thief' (PG-13)

If it were not for the Jewish fugitive tucked in the family’s basement and the spectacle of entire personal libraries erupting into bonfires, cheered on by crowds under scarlet banners, much of the soul-sapping experience of life in Nazi Germany could easily be lost to a more inspiring coming-of-age story.

But let’s face it—Markus Zusak’s novel “The Book Thief” covers some difficult territory. In adapting it to film, director Brian Percival, along with writer Michael Petroni, had to temper the desire for broad strokes while keeping a wary account of the moments cherished by fans of the book.

The result is a bright and eloquent tale set against a dark, yet distant curtain.

Liesel is a young girl left in the foster care of an older couple living in 1938 Germany. She is both illiterate and frightened—the gentle father must coax Liesel into his car with royal flourishes (“Your Majesty,” he says as he extends a warm hand to the trembling girl).

Veteran Geoffrey Rush plays the father with the same healing patience he employed in “The King’s Speech.” Over the next few years, she not only learns to read, but also to adore the world opened up to her by the books she encounters.

Unfortunately, this is Hitler’s Germany. As he soothes pain and builds confidence, outside the doors of the family’s homestead, others rend things apart with much greater relish. People burn books deemed unacceptable. They haul away homosexuals, gypsies and Jews.

The family hides a Jewish friend in their basement. To help mend the bruises of reality, Liesel spirits books from a private library and reads to the friend and her family. No longer the trembling child, she has found quiet nobility, even defiance, in the act.

Of course, one person may show themselves better than evil in the private devotion. But no one dares make a public stand.

It’s not the film’s purpose to veer into such territory. The story is fictional, after all. Yet the fact of history drapes over it as a cloak, one the viewer is unlikely to shake completely.

This makes “The Book Thief” unique as a film. It exists as an adaptation, and is admirable in this respect. It brings to life the power of individual accomplishment and the transformative nature of an intellectual awakening. Yet there is that point where people capitulate, tossing books onto the flames or looking away as neighbors are hustled unwillingly into darkness.

The movie is charming. It may also leave marks.

 Starring: Sophie Nelisse, Geoffrey Rush, Emily Watson, Ben Schnetzer, Roger Allam, Nico Liersch, Heike Makatsch