Jojo Rabbit Review

Awards season is upon us and the other weekend I did a double feature of two of the more buzzier films at the moment, "Jojo Rabbit" and "Parasite." We'll get to "Parasite" in my next review, but first I'm going to dive into "Jojo Rabbit," the latest film from Taika Waititi. If you don't already know the name Taika Waititi by heart, he's the guy who directed "Thor: Ragnarok." Prior to that, he directed the 2014 film "What We Do in the Shadows" and the 2016 film "Hunt for the Wilderpeople." When it comes to "Jojo Rabbit," those latter two are the more relevant films if you want to get a real taste of what Taika is like. As much as I love "Thor: Ragnarok," that's a completely different ballgame given that it's a big-budgeted Marvel film. "Jojo Rabbit" sees Taika going back to the independet realm where he has complete control over everything he wants to do. In that realm, he has a very entertainingly bizarre style that reminds me a bit of Wes Anderson at times. He does a great job of perfectly intertwining humor and serious drama. With "What We Do in the Shadows," he did a Vampire Mockumentary while "Hunt for the Wilderpeople"  reminded me of a live-action remake of "Up." It was both hilarious and touching, which is the path that "Jojo Rabbit" takes.

I will say that when I watched the initial trailer, while I was excited to see the movie based on Taika's directing prowess alone, I was a bit confused as to what exactly the movie is. Speaking of Wes Anderson, it reminded me of "Moonrise Kingdom," but with kids going to a Nazi Germany camp while one of them has Hitler as his imaginary friend. It looked hilariously bizarre, and when I first saw the trailer in theaters without knowing what it was, I actually thought it was a new Wes Anderson film that I hadn't heard of. But how is a comedic movie about Nazis going to work in mainstream 2019? As it turns out, there's a lot more to this movie than that initial trailer hints at. And actually, if you've seen the second trailer, you get a major clue. Funny enough, I didn't see that second trailer until after I had already seen the movie. As I mentioned above, I saw this in a double feature with "Parasite." When I watched "Parasite," the second "Jojo Rabbit" trailer was one of the trailers shown. Not only does that give away what the movie is about, it actually showed way too much of the film, in my opinion. I'm glad I never saw it. I rather enjoyed the experience of having only a small taste of what the movie was, while discovering the whole thing in the moment of seeing the movie.

On that note, if you've seen Taika's films and you're excited for "Jojo Rabbit," I'd recommend just jumping into this one as blindly as humanly possible. This is not a spoiler review, but I'm going to talk plot points and I'm going to describe the emotional journey I went on while watching it because it was quite the wild ride. Feel free to close this review and come back later. Just know that I think this is Taika's best movie to date and one of the best movies of 2019. If you've already seen the movie or you don't mind me exploring my journey of this film a bit, then let's proceed. The first surprise I had while watching this movie was that all the stuff regarding the Nazi camp that the kids went to was all the first 10-15 minutes of the movie. That initial trailer may have shown random clips from the middle or end, but the majority of it came from the movie's intro. This is another movie about the horrors of Nazi Germany during World War II. On that note, this isn't necessarily the most unique film in regards to premise. I've seen a lot of movies that take on the same exact subject matter. But what is unique is the angle that Taika takes on it. This movie is told from the perspective of a young boy who doesn't know any better. He thinks Nazis are good and Jews are evil. That's all he's ever known and thus you can't blame him for what he does.

Because of this, I really liked this kid's arc in the film. And yes, his name is Jojo and he's given the nickname Jojo Rabbit. If you were wondering why the movie was called "Jojo Rabbit," that's your reason. Jojo is played wonderfully by Roman Griffin Davis and the comedic aspect of the movie's beginning works like magic. Tonally it's a bit strange to see Hitler as his best friend with so much love and praise given to the Nazis. Usually movies about Nazi Germany are dark and serious, with all the Nazis rightfully being treated as the evil enemies that they were. But that's not how we start out here. The movie is lighthearted and comedic as we seemingly glorify the Nazis and tear the evil, rotten, inhuman Jews to pieces. But the reason it works so well is because it's told from the perspective a little kid. Again, he doesn't know any better. In retrospect, we all know how awful the Nazis were. But if a young kid growing up in the 1940s was essentially brainwashed into thinking the Nazis were the good guys, you can't blame him for seeing Hitler as his idol while aspiring to be a part of the German army. Yet there are subtle moments where you see Jojo's honest good nature, like when the leaders of the camp throw him a rabbit and tell him to kill it and he just can't.

This is where the movie just blossoms. Due to unfortunate circumstances in the eyes of Jojo, he is unable to be a part of this young, brainwashed army and has to spend the majority of his time at home. This setting is where the majority of this movie takes place. While Jojo is trapped in home, he accidentally stumbles on a Jewish girl hiding in his wall. Jojo's mother, played by Scarlett Johansson, has been secretly hiding her in their home, telling absolutely no one for obvious reasons. When Jojo discovers this girl, he is legitimately freaked out, so him and imaginary Hitler come up with a game plan as to what they are going to do. What I liked here is that this movie didn't take any shortcuts. You know exactly where this is going. This is not a movie that glorifies Nazi Germany in any way, shape or form. This young Jewish girl is our real hero, along with Scar Jo for giving her a place to stay. But instead of jumping right to that the second we discover her, the movie takes Jojo's pace and is more than happy to maintain a comedic tone along the way because Jojo still feels this high level of energy and optimism as he's breezing his way through life. All this Nazi stuff with Hitler as a main character may have felt irreverent, but it was genuinely hilarious and served a good purpose.

Roman Griffin Davis as Jojo was just so good in this movie. He was front and center for the majority of the movie and impressively carried this entire film on his shoulders. Of course I have to give him a lot of credit for this, but when a child actor knocks his performance out of the park, I feel like giving the director at least an equal amount of credit. When I think about it, both "Jojo Rabbit" and "Hunt for the Wilderpeople" leaned heavily on a young actor, meaning Taika is great at directing children. Many kudos there. In addition to a good director, young Roman also had a solid supporting cast that boosted him up. Thomasin McKenzie as the Jewish girl and Scarlett Johansson as the mother both gave performances that were very subtle. There was no flamboyant "Oscar moment" for either of them, but the way the both responded to Jojo in what he was doing made a lasting impact long after the movie was over. I really loved how Thomasin McKenzie, whose character's name was Elsa, played along with Jojo when Jojo was very naive in trying to figure out how to deal with her. Yet even though she put on a good face for Jojo, you could sense her pain. And Scar Jo as the mother was such a loving, caring mother who was quietly being super heroic.

All of these performances built to excellent character arcs that had me really invested in everyone's story. And when the time was right, there was a definite tonal shift in this movie. This was a shift that completely blindsided me. After spending the majority of the movie up to that point nearly rolling over in my seat with laughter, the movie took a giant 2 x 4 board and decked me over the head with it when I wasn't expecting. I don't want to go into any detail about what exactly it was that caused this, but I was sent reeling into a deep depression for the rest of the movie. It was so bad that when Taika tried to make things lighthearted, I just wasn't ready for it. Some of the later jokes felt inappropriate because I wasn't in the mood to laugh anymore. And there's certainly a specific moment here that perhaps might be the most memorable scene of 2019. When you get there, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. I kinda feel bad even bringing this up as you might now be preparing yourself while watching, but I gave a fair warning and I can't talk about this movie without describing these emotions I went through. Even though the tonal shift is sudden, in the context of war or even any tragedy, it's very real. Sometimes were not ready for what life has to throw at us.

I meant to write this review much earlier than I did. I could've gotten it out nearly two weeks ago. But I'm glad that I waited a bit because it's given me time to simmer over everything that I watched. It's a movie that cuts deep, yet is able to perfectly intertwine the drastically different tones. It's not very often that I can say that a movie is one of the funniest movies of the year while also being one of the most emotionally heavy. When I watch this a second time, I have a feeling that both of those emotions are going to be amplified with the added context. I might laugh harder at all the humor, especially with the Hitler scenes, Hitler being played by Taika himself. Yet I might also be a complete emotional wreck, requiring a shoulder to cry on in certain moments. And there's so much more to expand on here that I refuse to say. Nevertheless, this movie becomes one of the most real, honest and emotional coming of age stories as we watch a boy slowly discover the realities of his situation as he grows from ignorance and naivity to complete understanding due to circumstances that he is unfairly thrown into. Taika really has delivered quite the unique and memorable film that's going to stick with me for a long time. Because of that, I'm going to give it a strong 9/10.