JoJo Rabbit Review

If your Taika Waititi and you've just had your biggest commercial and critical hit of your career with 'Thor:Ragnorok' then you can pretty much tell Hollywood what you want to do next and Taika wanted to make a comedy about a young German boy at the end of World War 2 and his imaginary friend Hitler.

We follow the story of young 'JoJo' Betzler, a fully fledged member of the Hitler youth who wants nothing more than to grow up and be part of Hitlers own special guard. He is taught to hate Jew's without really knowing why but early on when he is tasked with killing a rabbit, he cannot go through with it and he earns his nickname. He discovers a Jewish girl is hiding out in his attic and yet promises not to turn her in as it would implicate him and his mother, little does JoJo know that his mother (the never better Scarlett Johanssen) is actively helping Jew's escape and wants Germany to lose the war.

As Stephen Merchant's unaturally tall Gestapo agent says 'I wish all young boys had your blind fanatiscism' and its only through meeting Elsa in his attic that he grows up and begins to question the Nazi regime.

I have seen negative and lazy reviews about this film, 'oh it trivilizes Nazis', and 'you can't make a comedy about World War 2'. Yes you can! Thats the exact point Waititi's trying to make here, these people and this ideaology needs to be mercilessly mocked because it it was ridicious and abbhorent. Then the claim about it mocking World War 2...I'm guessing modern critics have forgotten every inept Nazi portrayal on screen in the last 50 years, isn't it better to mock the idea of the Nazi's than show it reverence onscreen so that the small minority do not look at and think 'it's cool', they've also never seen The Producers!

There have been complaints about the camp performance of Sam Rockwell's one eyed Captain Klezendorf and his veiled relationship with his 2nd in command Finkel played by Alfie Allen. However clearly being outwardly gay in Nazi Germany was not a good idea at the time and due to his injury his character has become a sympathetic alocholic who is clearly fond of JoJo & his mother. Rockwell is an amazing actor and his final scene where he saves JoJo being calling him a filthy jew before being led to his death is heartbreaking.

Early on the tone of the film is quite light with Waititi's incarnation of Hitler playfully what a 10 year old boy would expect of an imaginary friend, he's rude, spiteful, cowardly and never has any answers for JoJo when he begins to question him.

Scarlett Johansson gives one of her all time best performances here, as so often I feel that I'm watching Scarlett Johansson in a movie and not the character she is portaying. Here she absolutely convinces as the single mother who is struggling with raising JoJo alone and in a brilliant dinner scene acts out as her missing husband talking to herself and JoJo.

There was an audible gasp in the cinema when JoJo finds his mother hanging in the square, the violence and death all around had not directly impacted our characters yet and with the film being so light and funny it comes as a major shock.

Young Roman Griffin Davis is a revelation as JoJo and througout the film the camera frames him like a rabbit in the headlights, his representation of his name both metaphorical and literal. A special mention must go to his best friend (after Hitler of course) Yorki (Archie Yates) who steals every scene he is in with his cheerful indifference.

Also shining in an early role is Thomasin McKenzie as Elsa the young jewish girl JoJo's mother has been hiding in their attic, she goes from initially terrorising JoJo (Where did she get all the knives?) to mocking him, to eventually comforting him after his mothers passing.

Stephen Merchant has a cameo as an SS officer which strikes the right balance between the bumbling nazi stereotype of 'Allo Allo' (For non-UK readers it was a BBC comedy set during occupied Franc during World War 2 that was insanely popular in the 1980's) and the quiet cheerful menace of Christoph Waltz in Tarantino's Inglorious Bastards. Rebel Wilson & Alfie Allen give decent comic relief though their roles are fairly two dimensional without any character development and there broad performances sometimes clash with the tone of the film later on.

On paper this was a massive risk for Waiti coming from the enormous success of the Marvel universe with Thor:Ragnorak, well instead it won him an Oscar for best adapted screenplay and for me this is one of the films of the year. It starts off light and funny clearly mocking the Nazi's before getting into more dramatic fare once we find that JoJo's mother has been helping the resistence and her eventual end. This is JoJo's story though and we see him go from wanting to be best friends with Hitler and hunting down Jews, to realising through his friendship with Elsa that perhaps he is not a nazi after all and really just a scared lonely boy who wants to be part of a club. As he begins to change his mind about the being a Nazi we see Waitits' Hitler get more and more childish and petty until JoJo finally summons the courage to kick him through a window with a crowd pleasing 'Fuck off Hitler'. This continues Waiti's streak of great films from 'Hunt for The Wilder People', 'What We Do In The Shadows' and Thor:Ragnorak. He has recently directed the season finale of 'The Mandalorian' and it was just announced that he will be taking the reins for a new Star Wars film. The force wil definately need to be with him after the toxic fan culture that has plagued the most recent films, at the moment everyone loves his work but already the fanboys have been complaining that he will turn Star Wars into a comedy. If you've seen his work on 'The Mandalorin' then you know thats the not the case, yes he can write funny unexpected scenes and he has a unique sense of humour that does not appeal to everyone, but Disney have seen enough in him to hand him the keys to the kingdom and in some ways Thor:Ragnorak was a test run for a sci fi epic. I just hope he keeps balancing the big studio work with the smaller fare as it would be a shame for him to stop making great films like JoJo Rabbit.