Thestoryis about ayounggirlnamedLiesel who has to live withfoster parents duringthe height ofWorld War II. Onthe way to her new home, herbrotherdies, setting the somber tone for the story.
Both warm and gritty, filled with sentiment yet not sentimental, the movie follows the high-school senior Ben Kurtzman (Ben Foster) and his college-boy brother, Van (Adrien Brody), as they discover what it means to be Jewish at least in a social sense.