Taika Waititi‘s upcoming World War II satire is taking shape. Having already cast Scarlett Johansson in a lead role, now Sam Rockwell, having recently received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, has joined the cast of Jojo Rabbit.
The film revolves around Jojo, “a ten-year-old boy who, ridiculed by his peers and misunderstood by his mother, can’t quite figure out how to fit in. As the naïve young German struggles to understand his place in an increasingly Fascist regime, he resorts to an imaginary friend who can offer advice and help him cope”.
Here’s where things get strange. That imaginary friend? Adolf Hitler, who will be played by Waititi himself, who added “this is not the Adolf we know and hate, this guy is goofy, charming, and glides through life with a child-like naivety”.
Jojo also longs to be a part of the Hitler Youth, but when he discovers a Jewish girl living in his attic, he tries to get rid of her before beginning to see her as human. Rockwell will play a Nazi captain running the camp, while Johansson will play Jojo’s mother, a woman secretly working for the resistance.
Production on the film is expected to kick off by late spring, and whether it’s any good or not, it’s almost certainly going to be memorable in some way. The addition of Rockwell makes this an excellent cast, and considering Waititi’s directorial output so far, this has every chance of being genuinely good and not just the darkly comedic disaster it sounds like when you try and describe it to friends.
#Peace.Love.JojoRabbit
