Taikia Waititi you impressive human being

Rating: 6/10 (10 February 2020)

SYNOPSIS:
Jojo (Roman Griffin Davis) is a young aspiring Nazi who's imaginary friend is Adolf Hitler (Taika Waititi) and discovers that his mother is hiding a Jew in their home.
REVIEW:
Taika Waititi does a wonderful job both as director and as Hitler. This film does a beautiful job with satire and approaching the topic in a way that's not going too far and has a lot of heart.
POSITIVES:
Taika Waititi is plain and simply a genius. Creates a warm atmosphere off a very cold subject. Making it very funny whilst not making the subject a joke. Very clever writing and he also makes it more so clowning on Hitler and nazi's rather than glorifying it. He may be the only person able to make a film like this. You had marvelous acting from Roman Griffin Davis and Thomasin McKenzie, but the absolute scene snatcher is Scarlett Johansson as Jojo's mother. I thought the Supporting Actress category was very stacked and I honestly was hoping for Scar Jo to take home the nom as she also had a phenomenal main role in Marriage Story. Between Scar Jo and Florence Pugh I was really riding for (even though I knew Laura Dern had it in the bag and also had a great performance). You then had Sam Rockwell, Stephen Merchant, Rebel Wilson and Alfie Allen all having wonderful supporting roles to complete a well selected cast.
NEGATIVES:
I'm going to get so much hate for this, but honestly I didn't think Archie Yates was great like everyone else thought. I thought his character has the potential to be very funny, but ultimately some of the delivery fell flat for me. Now, I'm not saying his performance was atrocious or irredeemable, I just didn't find it all that great. He's a child actor and has potential, just didn't work here for me. There was a very serious action that took place in the third act of the film that I felt was brushed over quite quickly. This wasn't something to just brush off. I really felt they should've took more time with what happened to let the audience really feel the impact.
CONCLUSION:
This film has a lot to offer whether it's laughs or smiles or tears and it's directed and written in such a way that allows you to do that without consciously thinking about if it's okay to do with the subject matter. There's a lot of heart in this film and the back and forth between Roman Griffin Davis and Thomasin McKenzie was beautiful. Unfortunately, I felt some bug points in the film were brushed over and I wasn't all in on all of the delivery. Still a great film that anyone could enjoy. 6.9/10.