JOJO RABBIT
****
Dir: Taika Waititi (12A, 108 mins)
Taika Waititi’s broad satire may not win marks for subtlety and nuance, but it’s an entertaining gallop through prejudice. It’s Germany near the end of World War II and 10-year-old Jojo (played by an excellent Roman Griffin Davies) is a dedicated Hitler Youth member who loves swastikas. He wants to be the best Jew hater he can be, part of a horror he does not comprehend. And he even has an imaginary friend – Hitler himself, played with gleeful abandon by Waititi. All his hopes and dreams are turned on their head, however, when his mother, a wonderful Scarlett Johansson, takes in and hides Elsa, a Jewish refugee, sensitively portrayed by Thomasin McKenzie. Jojo’s frivolity is tempered as he realises the cost of war, and that his imaginary friend Hitler is not all he’s cracked up to be. There are swathes of belly laughs, plenty of cartoonish Nazis, Sam Rockwell’s SS officer, Stephen Merchant’s Gestapo man but amidst the broad comedy is a story of grief, indoctrination and hate. Loosely based on Christine Leunens’s far murkier novel, Caging Skies, Waititi encourages us to laugh at the absurdity of race hate and the extremists rearing their heads in today’s world. It’s an escapist comedy with a simple premise directed with verve and customary Waititi absurdity.
Opens Jan 1
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