Jojo Rabbit

Jojo Rabbit is a comedy, yes a comedy, about a 10-year-old boy and his imaginary friend called Adolf Hitler... Not going to work is it? Well, maybe.

Firstly it’s a bit of a shock that this storyline even made it on to the big screen what with people’s sensitivities these days even though making fun of Nazi Germany and Adolf Hitler is nothing new. Hello Mel Brooks. That was back in the 60's when World War II was a lot fresher in the mind but the world was lot less snowflake then.

Taika Waititi wrote the film, financed it, directed it and plays Hitler himself. I hope he lands some sort of award at the Oscars. I mean what more does a guy have to do.

The film is set in the dying days of the Second World War and follows Johannes 'Jojo' Betzler (Roman Griffin Davis) who in his youthful naivety, and because he’s a big fan of swastikas, signs up for the Hitler Youth. His local camp is run by Captain Klenzendorf (Sam Rockwell), a one-eyed drunk who is clearly miffed at no longer being allowed out on the battlefield.

While Jojo clearly dreams of becoming a war hero it's not really in his makeup and he gains the nicknamed 'Jojo Rabbit' when he fails to prove himself by killing a rabbit in one of the films least endearing scenes. He then blows himself up with a hand grenade, at which point he is assigned the more sedate task of handing out leaflets.

All the time he is ‘advised’ by his imaginary friend, a rather camp caricature of Hitler, while his father is MIA on the Italian Front and his mother Rosie (Scarlett Johansson) is busy working for the resistance.

It turns out his mother is also hiding a Jewish girl, Elsa (Thomasin McKenzie), in the attic. She is a former classmate of Jojo's sister Inge who has died of flu. Jojo is horrified when he discovers her and threatens to hand her in to the Gestapo until she points out that his mother would be executed for hiding her. Instead the pair start to get on which infuriates Imaginary Adolf as Elsa gradually picks away at the years of brainwashing that Jojo has received.

When Jojo writes a propaganda book on the Jews for Klenzendorf she feeds him crazy stories about the Jews having special powers. Meanwhile Jojo forges letters to her from her fiancé Nathan, telling her that Nathan wants to break up with her.

When the Gestapo discover her she pretends to be Inge and gets away with help, surprisingly, from Klenzendorf. Jojo is relieved but then later that day, finds his mother has been hanged in the street in a remarkably understated scene. Then as news breaks that the Allies are closing in, Jojo sees his school friends in the Hitler Youth being hurled into battle as a final desperate last act.

It’s certainly a different approach to Hilter and the war. Waititi’s film seems to deliberately sidestep addressing the evils that he shows you and instead lets it wash over you. Yet he still makes a point, I think, about how easily such evil thoughts and ideals can breed in a nation. Which is a very relevant point today with nationalism reappearing around the globe. Whether it’s the right approach, I’m not sure.

Vice

A band called The Brakes have a song called 'Cheney'. It is only ten seconds long and its entire lyric is 'One, two, three, four... Cheney, Cheney, Cheney, Cheney, Cheney, Cheney, Cheney. Stop being such a dick.' It's blunt but for a protest song it is a little light on detail.

Not so Adam McKay's Vice, which presents an entire charge sheet against the man. It will depend what your persuasion is politically whether you believe him or not. He also admits right at the start that he's up against a very secretive man who was also meticulous at covering his tracks.

This is McKay's follow up to the outstanding ‘The Big Short’ where he made mortgages almost enjoyable. The film is narrated by a fictional character called Kurt (Jesse Plemons), whose connection to Cheney isn’t revealed until much later in the film and makes for an interesting plot device.

Throughout the film, Cheney (Christian Bale) is painted as ruthless ambitious political animal, oil mogul and waterboarding fan. Alongside him is a cast of powerful political people. Such as Colin Powell (Tyler Perry), Scooter Libby (Justin Kirk), Condoleezza Rice (LisaGay Hamilton) and Donald Rumsfeld (Steve Carell). All are easily recognisable likenesses.

It is Rumsfeld who inaugurates Cheney into Washington in the first place and continues to pop up throughout the story. Then there’s Cheney’s wife Lynne (Amy Adams), who is almost as ruthless as Cheney himself.

The story gets even more interesting (and more controversial) when we get to George W. Bush’s (Sam Rockwell) presidency where Cheney reshaped the role of Vice President from merely a ceremonial one to one with real power. That is all the powers he wanted and Cheney seems to manipulate Bush at will. The Bush period is clearly the film’s main target and questions this administration on almost everything but most specifically on 9/11 and on Iraq.

Say what you like about his politics and his morals (or lack of them) but Cheney certainly knew how to take his opportunities. The only handbrake on Cheney’s ambition comes when he considers the effect his career would have on his daughter Mary (Alison Pill), a committed lesbian and very much pro same-sex marriage which certainly isn’t the Republican Party’s line. Yet he ditches even those considerations in the end.

In a speech towards the end of the film, Cheney says that the public got what they wanted because they elected him. This is a message backed up by the film makers in a scene after the end of the film, amongst the credits that the many who leave before these roll will have missed.

Going back to a Republican Party focus group that appeared earlier in the film, this group are now discussing the film itself and coming to blows about it. Apart from one young woman who, looking bored, turns to her friend and says she really wanted to watch the new ‘Fast and Furious’ movie. The message being that she’s not really interested in what matters. A message that could just as easily be applied in the UK at the moment.

A very decent film with Bale, if you can spot him under the make-up and padding, excellent.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

The action takes place in the remote community of Ebbing, Missouri and a pretty miserable downbeat community it is. Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand) has plenty of cause to be miserable. She works in an bleak gift shop but that isn't why she is miserable. Her daughter Angela was raped and murdered seven months ago. Now she lives with her depressed son Robbie (Lucas Hedges) while her husband Charlie (John Hawkes), who blames her for their daughter murder, has left her to be with Penelope (Samara Weaving), a woman half his age who works at the local zoo. To cap it all the town’s dwarf (Peter Dinklage) has a crush on her.

Frustrated with the police, who have made no progress on the case, Mildred rents three unused billboards on the edge of town and puts up billboards which read ‘Raped While Dying’, ‘And Still No Arrests?’, and ‘How Come, Chief Willoughby?’. 

This has the desired effect, puts the wind up the police and attracts the attention of the local media. Yes while police chief Bill Willoughby (Woody Harrelson) manages to retain his cool, his inept and racist deputy Jason Dixon (Sam Rockwell) takes offence.

He takes his ire out on Red Welby (Caleb Landry Jones), the businessman who rented Mildred the billboards, and arrests her friend Denise (Amanda Warren) on a trumped up charge.

The billboards also upset the townspeople and with Willoughby openly suffering from terminal cancer they too are less than happy with Mildred.

  

She is hauled before the police herself when she strikes out in frustration at her dentist. Then after interviewing her, Willoughby, another one who has a partner almost half his age, goes for a final romantic fling with his wife Anne (Abbie Cornish) and then kills himself before his cancer does the job. Although not before first paying for another month’s rental on the billboards. 

When the billboards are destroyed by arson, Mildred retaliates by chucking Molotov cocktails at the police station and from an impressive distance. Unexpectedly Dixon is inside, rethinking his attitude, career and life after being left a letter by Willoughby and fired by Willoughby's replacement. He ends up sharing a hospital room with Red who is recovering from the injuries Dixon inflicted on him.

Suddenly becoming the nice guy Dixon reckons he has a lead on who killed Angela but when it it turns out the man has an alibi, Mildred and Dixon together conclude that the man must be guilty of some other attack and set together to kill him anyway...

It is a wonderfully complex film in which there is an awful lot going on. It is full of action, (black) comedy, poignancy and rage (plenty of rage). It’s very Coen-ish and incidentally stars Coen favourite McDormand, who brilliantly plays a woman weather beaten and worn down by life. It is her best performance since Fargo.

Probably the film of the year, already.