Jojo Rabbit

Today I saw Jojo Rabbit, starring Roman Griffin Davis and Thomasin McKenzie.

Jojo (Davis) is a 10-year-old boy in Nazi Germany. He is a youth training to fight for Hitler and his mother (Scarlett Johansson) isn't happy about it, but plays along for the sake of survival.

One day, Jojo discovers a young Jewish friend of his dead sister's hiding out in his house—apparently his mother has kept her there for quite a while, but she's never been discovered. He is torn whether or not to report her presence to the Gestapo.

But then he falls in love with her.

Sounds like a sweet story, right? Well, moments of it are, but that's all buried by the bold satire via Jojo's imaginary friend in the form of Adolf himself (Taika Waititi). And the precocious kid that's on-screen for virtually the entire film. Seriously, he's exhausting.

Perhaps it's healthy to explore WWII from a different angle and try to bring an absurd light to the infinite darkness of the Holocaust, but I just couldn't find myself getting on board.

The film was all over the place and because of that I couldn't completely 'feel' for any of the characters, though several were indisputably tragic.

I understand why Johansson got an Oscar nod for her performance in the film, but I'm baffled by it's Best Picture nomination.

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