Uneven, messy "anti-hate satire"

Rating: 5/10 (23 October 2019)

I was hoping that this film could be profound and entertaining since I love satire, and it has a strong cast. Unfortunately, its humor and ambition never reach the potential they could possibly strive to obtain. The film is set during World War II in Nazi Germany, and tells the story of a young Hitler Youth member whose imaginary friend is Adolf Hitler. The boy is blindly following the despicable scourge of Nazism, but is forced to confront his beliefs when he discovers that a Jewish girl is hiding in his home.
While the story could have engaged in very clever and acerbic satire showing the true depravity of fascism, the film's attempts to skewer the Nazi ideology never really rises above the pedestrian. The film's jokes are surprisingly often thin and juvenile rather than truly witty and thought-provoking, and they manage to wear thin quickly. Another problem with this film is that its purpose--a supposedly edgy satire against the Nazi regime--is somewhat self-defeating when the film is never quite as edgy or provocative as it could be, opting to often play it safe by simply resorting to baseline and surface-level writing. While the characters are engaging enough, they are never developed enough to truly care about their motivations or what happens to them. The film also contains a bizarre tonal change that is executed very poorly, unlike the brilliant manipulation of tone in something like Bong Joon-ho's "Parasite." It looks interesting aesthetically, with engaging cinematography and unique production design reminiscent of Wes Anderson, and it has some clever moments in its first act. Unfortunately, though, there isn't a ton else especially memorable on display here. 5/10