With dark comedy, Taika Waititi shows how propaganda can affect a person.

Rating: 7/10 (27 December 2019)

Jojo Rabbit is a new war drama comedy directed, written and partly produced by Taika Waititi, the director of Hunt for the Wilderpeople and Thor: Ragnarok.
The film is set in Germany where Adolf Hitler has the power. The young Yo-yo (Roman Griffin Davis) is raised under Nazi policies with the propaganda that Hitler and his Third Reich are the saviors of the world and that the Jewish people are responsible for the world's problems.
Jojo is a bit lonely and insecure about himself and doesn't dare too much. For this reason, he is soon nicknamed Jojo Rabbit. Because of his loneliness and his head filled with propaganda, Jojo sees an imaginary version of Adolf Hitler (Taika Waititi) as his imaginary friend who advises him how to live his life.
When Jojo discovers that his mother Rosie (Scarlett Johansson) is helping a Jewish girl named Elsa (Thomasin McKenzie) go into hiding in their attic, Jojo faces a difficult choice. He can report his own mother and Jewish girl to the Nazi Board, just as his imaginary friend advises him to do, or to keep his mother's secret secret until the war is over.
With this film, Taika Waititi shows well how something like propaganda can make someone change his mind and then completely of young children. He does this in a way that he knows how to bring a good mix of comedy and drama. The film also has the message that you have to make your own choices in your life without the influence of someone else. The film also shows well that you don't have to judge anyone by their appearance or belief, but you first have to get to know the person before you can judge how someone actually is. Taika Waititi has also written the film in a respectful way, but still manages to ridicule Nazi ideas in a good way.
The film also has an appropriate film set that comes across as Germany during the Nazi regime where the walls were hung and people were walking around with propaganda to portray their leader in a positive way. The film shows so well how propaganda blinded Hitler's followers. The horrible things that happened thanks to Hitler are portrayed in a nice colorful way in the film, while it was actually about idiotic things.
The acting is also done well in the film. This is only the first acting work of Roman Griffin Davis and he already performs his role in a good and credible way. The other starting actor Archie Yates also plays his role well. The two young actors look nice together. Scarlett Johansson also performs well when Jojo shows his mother how her son changes her lifestyle through Nazi propaganda. Taika Waititi also does it comically as an imaginary version of Adolf Hitler.