Much improved compared to a problematic hteful book

Rating: 9/10 (15 November 2019)

The movie has a lot of Waititi brilliance, and imaginary Adolf is completely original and inspired. While the book Caging Skies is one htefest of crazed feminist misandry especially in its second half, which Waititi did not even read, he made best out of the source material that did not deserve to be honored by his great talents in fact. Interestingly, the book steals much from the Underground of Kusturica, and other Balkan inspirations are responsible for this little movie gem - from Tito and Me, another take on imaginary dictator friend, to Waititi admitting reading about wars in the Balkans to give the human touch to the story. For atroc ities and other ills, he had a lot of experience with the Brits, and na zi rallies to Beatles music seem like a perfect fit, as does the casting of some pretty ug ly inside and out Brit characters. Some humanity Waititi sees also in Germans, most notably the complex Sam Rockwell character, one of the heroes of the movie. Overall Waititi's faith in humanity shines through and he manages to distance himself from the pretty repugnant source "book" luckily the first half of which did offer such opportunity with a lot of input from the Jewish-Maori genius.