Jojo Rabbit stars Roman Griffith Davis, as Jojo Rabbit; an aspiring Hitler Youth who is exposed and made fun of, for not being able to kill a rabbit on command. A mishap with a grenade leaves him deformed, and unable to complete his training to become a Nazi soldier, so Jojo finds himself at home a lot during the day, where he discovers his mother, Rosie (Scarlett Johansson), is hiding a Jewish girl, Elsa (Thomasin McKenzie), from authorities. Jojo would like to turn her in, but that would mean ramifications for both him and his mother. The film is written and directed by Taika Waititi, who also plays an unexpected imaginary influence on Jojo – the film also stars Sam Rockwell, Stephen Merchant and Rebel Wilson.
Straight off the bat, I think I should say, I believe nothing is off limits in comedy, but you are responsible for the jokes you make, although I wouldn’t hang anybody for trying to bring levity into the world. I believe if you’re going to trivialise the events of World War II, or any conflict for that matter, then you need to have something extremely funny or extremely poignant; Jojo Rabbit doesn’t have enough of either for me. Obviously, I understand Jojo Rabbit has worked for many people; it’s been nominated for Best Picture for goodness sake, and it’s great that people are enjoying it – I don’t think the movie is mean-spirited, or attacks anyone other than Nazis, so that’s fine, it’s just not to my taste. I think where Jojo Rabbit differs from The Producers, a stage musical and movie that also pokes fun at Hitler that I do enjoy, is that I think the joke in the Mel Brooks production is that “you shouldn’t make fun of World War II, but look how funny it is when you do”, where Jojo Rabbit is only poking fun. I think you have to try a joke to see if it’ll work, and your audience lets you know if you have a goodin’ or the right crowd – me: wrong crowd; the worst of it being Rebel Wilson’s character strapping a bomb onto a child’s back and telling him to hug a Russian. That being said, if you read on further, I’ll talk more specifically about the movie.
I barely felt any affiliation with Jojo. It’s funny, after all the Mary Sue allegations levelled at Rey from the Star Wars sequels that I agree with, Jojo falls way over on the other side of the spectrum and I found him to be quite useless. He’s got to show some competence, doesn’t he; is it his steadfast determination and adoration of the Nazi Party? That’s not all that appealing. Watching a ten-year-old falling in love with a seventeen-year-old also felt very weird to me, and the whole time I kept thinking, “she must stink!” Jojo does finally ‘allow’ his fellow human to have a bath, but I understand spending all your days hiding in a wall must have been filthy and degrading, and although the movie might like me to reserve that concern without really addressing it, I was never able to put it aside. There’s also a popular movie position out there called the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, which roughly describes a female character that solely exists for the male character benefit – my first instinct is to label Elsa as the most dream-girl character I’ve seen in a movie for a long time; she’s fairly one-dimensional, as she is only there to get Jojo familiar with Jews and love.
Taika Waititi tries to Springtime-for-Hitler his way through Jojo Rabbit, in an incarnation of Adolf Hitler that works as Jojo’s imaginary friend. The concept of this imaginary child-like Hitler is fantastic, but I don’t know what ratio of his antics need to be funny for it to work; more than 50/50? I don’t think Jojo earns the moment when he finally tells Hitler to fuck off either because he hasn’t necessarily learnt that Hitler is wrong, more than Jojo has now decided he wants something different with his life, and he wants Elsa to live. This Hitler is like that annoying friend you outgrow, but that doesn’t necessitate being mean to them. I think the joke is cheap because we’d all like to tell the real Hitler to fuck off. Jojo also deserves his slap and then some when it is revealed he had a chance to tell Elsa she needn’t worry about Nazis looking to kill her anymore, and that the war is over, but choses to lie.
At the end of the day, my takeaway is that Jojo Rabbit doesn’t deliver enough to justify its own existence. It’s easy to make fun of Nazis; there isn’t a rational soul alive that would defend them, but what are you going to do with it? For all the humour, the movie does take itself seriously, with an artsy aesthetic and educated references. I’ve liked Waititi and his previous ideas, with What We Do in the Shadows, Thor: Ragnarok, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, and a very underrated movie called Eagle vs. Shark, but this one fails to connect a weighty punch that makes it all worthwhile. There are some things I did love – the entire war sequence, that contains explosions and all our supporting characters, and the connection made between Rosie and her shoes that paid off unfortunately near the end. Jojo writing love letters to Elsa as Nathan was also sweet, as was Rosie pretending to be Jojo’s father and Sam Rockwell’s character saving the day. And Archie Yates is adorable.
The little girl in the Subaru ad would empathise with Jojo Rabbit – you finally learn to tie your shoelaces and Mum’s not around to notice.
1.5
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