Review: Jojo Rabbit

Image courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures.

Taika Waititi's "Jojo Rabbit" works a whole lot more than I thought it would - or than it should, for that matter. Films that incorporate lighthearted elements - or are outright comedies - involving the Holocaust always take a certain amount of risk in terms of tone - although there have been good ones by Mel Brooks and Roberto Benigni. Waititi makes it clear from the start that his picture is going for laughs, although it later draws other emotional responses.

The picture kicks off feeling like a kookier version of a Wes Anderson Holocaust movie. The lead protagonist, Jojo Rabbit (Roman Griffin Davis), so named for his inability to follow a command from an SS crony to kill a small woodland creature, is a young zealot who is part of the Hitler Youths. At the film's beginning, Jojo disastrously attempts to show off while throwing a grenade, and this quickly cuts his Hitler Youth days short.

No matter because Adolf Hitler himself happens to be the boy's imaginary best friend (and played by the director). I know, this sort of whimsical approach shouldn't work, and there are some valid complaints that are sure to be had as portraying Hitler as such a fun-loving guy. Then again, keep in mind that this is how the naive Jojo views the fuhrer, whose introduction via stock footage clips compares to him to a pop music star.

Jojo's mother (Scarlett Johansson) doesn't approve of her son's obsessions - so much so that she's hiding a young Jewish girl named Elsa (Thomasin McKenzie) in the attic - and isn't too pleased with her home country either. But for Elsa's sake, she tows the line.

"Jojo Rabbit" is actually a pretty funny movie - a joke about German shepherds will leave even the most hardened cynic in the film laughing loudly, I gather - and it's a coming of age film with its heart in the right place. It also helps that the cast is so good, especially the three leads, but also Sam Rockwell as a vainglorious Nazi captain and Archie Yates as Jojo's best pal.

Oddly enough, the film's biggest flaw is Hitler as Jojo's imaginary friend, but not in the way you might think. If anything, this plot device plays it a little too safely and could have been utilized for more pointed commentary. There are also a few scenes involving Rockwell's character that, although the actor is good in the movie, are a little too far fetched to believe.

That being said, the film doesn't exist merely to poke fun at Nazis, and in its final moments it makes a rousing pitch for humanism in horrifying times. There's a quote from Rainer Maria Rilke - a poet cited more than once in the film - in the film's finale to provide backup evidence as such and a shockingly sad moment late in the film in which Jojo discovers a well-known pair of shoes in a place he might not expect them. The scene is so terribly sad that one almost forgets all of the comedic bits that came before it.

All in all, "Jojo Rabbit" mostly works. It's not often that I find myself using the expression "delightful" when it comes to movies about the Holocaust, but it applies well enough here. Waititi's film is often funny, but when it aims for the gut, its punches land pretty hard.