Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi has taken the cred he scored from that blockbuster Marvel movie (and astounding effort to boot) and parlayed it into something truly special—a fascist farce. Wait, what?
Yes, Waititi’s latest is called JoJo Rabbit and the latest trailer for the fierce and funny flick has us all sorts of excited to check it out when it lands in theaters October 18.
It features a stellar cast, including Scarlett Johansson and Sam Rockwell. But the story focuses on a 10-year-old boy named Jojo (Roman Griffin Davis), who lives in Nazi Germany and has an imaginary friend named Adolf Hitler (Waititi), yup, that Hitler. He is a young Nazi in training and as we see in the trailer, that ideology gets challenge when his mother (Johansson) hides a young Jewish girl (Thomasin McKenzie) in their attic. What would his imaginary friend think?
I also adore the use of German versions of some pretty recognizable hits in the trailer, such as Neil Diamond’s I’m a Believer.
The film could not be timelier. With many world governments heading to the fringe right of things (i.e. authoritarianism is on the rise), Jojo Rabbit’s timing is impeccable.
Jojo Rabbit will make its debut at TIFF and initial reactions will be immediate, and I cannot wait to see what people make of what appears on the outside to be something truly special.
The comedy also stars Rebel Wilson, Stephen Merchant and Alfie Allen.