A dynamic but flawed Nazi satire that invokes Moonrise Kingdom by way of Mel Brooks.

This is a spoiler-free review.

Nazism is pretty ridiculous if you think about it. A fanatical campaign to create a super race led by a germaphobic speed-addict with a fear of heights. The white supremacy of 2019 is equally absurd with its internet trolls insisting from behind green frog avatars that drinking soy milk makes you gay. With the resurgence of neo-Nazism in America and beyond comes the renewed necessity to combat its poisonous ideology with satire. Taika Waititi’s new film Jojo Rabbit succeeds in making Nazis the butt of the joke but fails to convey a deeper message about the origins of the hate and cowardice that created them. 

When not making movies about Wellington vampires or superhero space orgies, Waititi’s aesthetics have leaned heavily towards the quirky magical realism of Wes Anderson. Jojo Rabbit, like Waititi’s 2016 film Hunt for the Wilderpeople, draws heavily from the whimsical summer camp nostalgia of Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom. Jojo (Roman Griffin Davis) is a ten-and-a-half-year-old boy living in a postcard German town with his war-widowed mother (Scarlett Johansson) during the final months of WWII. A sensitive kid with few real friends, his feelings of nervousness and fear are dispelled by regular pep-talks from his imaginary friend, Adolph Hitler (Taika Waititi). Emboldened by his fantasy führer, Jojo cheerfully trundles off to Hitler Youth camp to learn important Nazi skills like grenade throwing and defense from Jewish mind control. While recuperating from a camp-related injury, he stumbles upon Elsa (Thomasin McKenzie), a sixteen-year-old Jewish girl his mother has hidden in the crawlspace of their home. Fearing repercussions against his mother for exposing Elsa, Jojo keeps her secret in exchange for information to use in a book he is writing about Jews (do they really sleep upside-down like bats?). Through the course of these regular fact-finding sessions, Jojo begins to empathize with Elsa as a person instead of the Jewish boogey-man he’s learned about from Nazi propaganda. 

For all its heavy subject matter, Jojo Rabbit is a genuinely funny film. Waititi deftly uses the camera as an active participant in the comedy rather than merely a passive observer of funny situations. The film blends creative camerawork with physical action and artful compositions to amuse the viewer in ways that go beyond its comical dialogue.

Similar to the much-needed levity he brought to the titular character in Thor: Ragnarok, Waititi’s script uses deliberately anachronistic modern dialogue to mine comedy from the characters’ historical circumstances (unfortunately this suspension of disbelief doesn’t extend to the actors’ clumsy German accents). It also has the advantage of making the characters more relatable to a modern audience (Johansson’s charismatic portrayal of a quirky Fun Mom™ could have been pulled straight from an episode of Gilmore Girls). Waititi himself as Imaginary Hitler brings many of the films biggest laughs, playing the despot as a sort of clownish bumbling uncle. Waititi infuses the role with an ebullient physicality which elevates the comedy above simply mugging for the camera and delivering funny one-liners. The entire cast, in fact, is keen to flex their fascist-bashing comedy chops. Be it Rebel Wilson’s airheaded fräulein with poor gun safety skills, Stephen Merchant’s reptilian gestapo officer, or of course Sam Rockwell’s now-familiar incompetent-but-likeable racist. In fact, the success Rockwell has found in recent years being typecast as a bigot with a heart of gold is emblematic of the core problem with the film and indeed modern films about bigotry in general: the assertion that members of hate groups are actually good people deep down inside, they just need an outside influence to love them and show them the error of their ways.

Jojo’s fanaticism is portrayed as a youthful indiscretion, a harmless vice borne of childish ignorance. Worse, Jojo’s ultimate reformation comes not from realizing the real-life pain and horror caused by his worldview, but through the emotional labor of his Jewish captor demonstrating why she’s worthy of not being murdered. The film’s biggest flaw is its failure to hit hard enough when depicting the fallout of racist ideologies. Racism may be ignorant and idiotic, but from idiocy springs deep cruelty. Jojo is depicted as a fanatic, yet the origins of that fanaticism are never made clear. He has a real-life best friend (Archie Yates), a loving mother, and a comfortable home. He’s experienced loss, yes, and bullying is vaguely implied, but at no point does the film examine the roots of Jojo’s fear and hatred of Jews beyond brainwashing by government propaganda. Johansson’s character is the best surrogate for the existential pain of Nazism, as her character sees the system for what it is and lives with the burden of protecting her son under it. Waititi shies away from using the film’s comedy as a counterpoint to the darker realities of Nazism and white supremacy. As a result the film is effective in making literal Nazis look like complete dorks but struggles to undermine the insidiousness of their white supremacist philosophy.

From The Great Dictator to “Springtime for Hitler”, the tradition of mocking Nazis is a necessary and cathartic retaliation against hate. The seduction of white supremacy comes in the belief that being part of a group makes you strong and powerful, and deriding those groups as weak and laughable diminishes their allure. But the underlying need many young men feel to join these organizations remains, and exposing the toxic masculinity at the core of these beliefs is just as important as exposing their ridiculous dogma. Waititi is no stranger to racist satire, and he uses his talents in Jojo Rabbit to effectively and entertainingly lampoon an ethos drunk on its own self-importance. However for all that the film mimics the whimsical highs of Wes Anderson pictures, it falters in incorporating the emotional lows that director employs to drive home his themes. In Jojo Rabbit, a creative eye for composition and a talented cast combine to make a deeply funny and charming film that lacks the emotional impact needed for its message to resonate with viewers.

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