Taika Waititi Is An Oafish Adolf Hitler In The Riotous Trailer For ‘Jojo Rabbit’

After you make a film with the cultural sway and commercial heft of Thor: Ragnarok, you can go on to do pretty much whatever you like for your next project. Which is probably the best way to introduce Jojo Rabbit, a new ‘anti-hate satire’ from Taika Waititi that’s so bizarre and risky that almost no other filmmaker on Earth could get a major studio to bankroll it.

Here’s the synopsis: Jojo Rabbit (Roman Griffin Davis), a cowardly young boy living in Nazi Germany, must navigate school bullies, the perils of puberty, and the revelation that his single mother Rosie (Scarlett “I Can Play A Tree” Johansson) is hiding a young Jewish girl (Thomasin McKenzie, extraordinary in last year’s Leave No Trace) in their attic.

So far, so reasonable. But then throw in the fact that Jojo is aided on his journey by his imaginary friend Adolf Hitler, played by Waititi himself, and it’s harder to see how the director managed to get through a pitch meeting without being hurled out onto the street. Especially given that Hitler is the film’s comic relief — a jolly, grinning oaf who spends the majority of the first trailer talking about how everyone thinks he’s mad.

But hey, looks like the risky bet has paid off big; Jojo Rabbit will see release around the American fall, exactly the time that major studios start lining up the films that they reckon could be a big hit with Oscar voters. Does that mean that Waititi might get another Academy Award nomination? Maybe, maybe not. Does that mean that the studio believes that they have a surefire critical hit on their hands, a little belter that will get through the sometimes commercially underwhelming fall season on strength of good word-of-mouth alone? Almost certainly.

Watch the full trailer for Jojo Rabbit below, and then start counting down the days till the October 18 release date.