Lot's of hoopla for some films that have opened recently. One is Enough Said w/ James Gandolfino ( his last performance) and the critics raved. It was, to me, a pleasant film that could easily have been a T V sitcom. Ms. Dreyfus' specialty---who I cannot abide.
The film that intrigued me after all the advertising was The Book Thief. I had not read the book ---which everyone is raving about and which was, to my knowledge, a "young/adult" tome. Be that as it may. It is a great story and, I assume, it was a wonderful book. As to being a film. That is another story. First let me dispense with the positive---the photography is truly wonderful for a picture postcard. The film does not represent the horrors of war, the devastation, and the upheavals of the victims and their families. It presents a nice sugar coated version of sad events. Picture this---bombs are falling and our protagonist is playing his accordion in a bomb shelter to a rapt audience, people are conscripted into the Nazi forces and even though the protagonists truck is bombed and destroyed he, miraculously, survives and his home again---playing his accordion, the Jewish person who had almost died in hiding miraculously shows up again near the end. Nothing like happy endings for a subject that has been covered myriad times in films many times more realistic and well done---think of Judgement at Nuremberg among others.
So many films have captured the horrors of war and all the sadness that is the aftermath to people and families. It is a delight to know that the narrator "Death" in this film makes it all such a pleasant experience----SPOILER ALERT---the ending is almost too much over the top to be believe. I will say that I, personally, know of some folks that are akin to the ending of this film but that is still far from the real world of reality or even storytelling.
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