Writer and director Taika Waititi certainly had an instinct for casting in this satirical black comedy. The story is adapted from Caging Skies novel by Christine Leunens, and while it’s indisputably perilous in engaging in the horrors of WWII for a satire and is bound to be polarising, it’s obviously not without precedent with perhaps Charlie Chaplin delivering the best example with The Great Dictator in 1940.

The narrative is restricted to the subjectivity of JoJo (Roman Griffin Davis) an innocent ten-year-old who’s brain-washed to hate what he doesn’t even comprehend, and there is genuine pathos in the discussions between him and the smart and courageous Elsa (Thomasin McKenzie,) a Jewish girl hiding within his home. It's this tentative bond between JoJo and Elsa which is truly the heart and soul of this disturbing, funny and emotional movie.