Uneven, yet touching!

Rating: 6/10 (8 February 2020)

Ill-conceived, toothless satire riddled with embarrassingly unfunny, immature jokes that I couldn't help cringing at. This was my opinion of after an hour of watching Jojo Rabbit. The only merits I found in the first hour of the film are the undeniably decent performances, the stunning cinematography and the impressively colourful production design that bleeds into the costumes as well. Even the "sweet' and "charming" moments were hit-or-miss for me.
After the first hour, I can say that I found myself touched and moved out of the blue. I figured out that the film dramatically is quite effective. And if that says anything, it's that the dramatic set-up is actually great but Waititi's insistence to convince us, in a most factitious and pretentious way, that his film possess the punch, which it claims to be having, utterly blinded me of its emotional heft, which it definitely there, and it did take me off guard.
What's more off-putting than the cringe-worthy, infantile humour and the lame attempts at satire is that it tries to conceal its toothless satire behind the fact it's told from the perspective of a 10-year-old boy, which is true but inadequate and even kinda irrelevant, and the fact Waititi tried so hard to make it work satirically is the ultimate proof.
The film also suffers from jarring tonal shifts, but I think this is a relatively minor issue. Maybe it's too generous of me to give this film such rating, but I can't deny how emotionally impactful it ended up being. Also, Thomasin McKenzie. WOW!
(6.5/10)