Directed By Taika Waititi

Starring – Roman Griffin Davis, Thomassin McKenzie, Scarlett Johansson

The Plot – A World War II satire that follows a lonely German boy named Jojo (Davis) whose world view is turned upside down when he discovers his single mother (Johansson) is hiding a young Jewish girl (McKenzie) in their attic. Aided only by his idiotic imaginary friend, Adolf Hitler (Waititi), Jojo must confront his blind nationalism.

Rated PG-13 for mature thematic content, some disturbing images, violence, and adult language

POSITIVES

– German soundtrack. Composer Michael Giacchino incorporates a combination of humor and familiarity to the tracks he adorns the film with, preserving an element of pop culture to play against the scene they audibly decorate. What’s truly rewarding is that Giacchino takes a song like “I’m a Believer” by The Monkees, and dubs it in a German language alternative, which not only comes across as clever to the audience for the way they recognize each track despite it being sung in a foreign language, but also rewarding to the story in the sense that it plays into the very setting of the film. Even further than this, the German rendering gives the Nazi’s in the film an unshakeable presence, which alludes to what was transpiring for the territory at the time. In terms of cohesive collection, this is one of the more complete compilations for soundtrack in 2019, and thanks to Michael’s precision for adding a different dimension to theme of the song than we’re used to, it conjures up a devilishly delightful context that brings new life to their immortality.

– Mother/Son subplot. The chemistry between Davis and Johansson takes the movie miles, and offers a truly earned transformation for the dramatic enveloping that takes place at around the halfway point of the film. Scarlett often feels like the glimmer of hope to us the audience, in that her warm spirit for positivity and equality will hopefully rub-off on her toxically influenced son, and as the film progresses we start to cherish and indulge in the loneliness that forces each of them to take comfort in the other, and it’s one that took a film that I was only remotely interested in, and fleshed it out to where I couldn’t get enough of their moral tug-of-war dynamic. Mother characters often take a backseat to the central narrative of the picture involving a kin, but Waititi values that bond in a way that has an endearing significance on the rest of the film.

– Spirited performances. Even though the work of A-listers Johansson and Sam Rockwell are enough to keep you engaged in their energetic personalities, it is the youthful cast, as well as Waititi himself, who steal the show, and preserve some buzzworthy performances that will have them sifting through scripts for potential roles for the rest of their lives. Taika’s performance is one of the more intelligently-gifted performances this year, performing the imaginary Hitler in a way that a 10-year-old boy would act and speak. His bumbling personality help to keep any of his material offensive, and even more importantly offer a fresh perspective for the character than we’ve ever been accustomed to in life or cinema alike. Tomassin McKenzie has already been mentioned by me after last year’s “Leave No Trace”, for the way her sorrowful registry weighed heavily over the tonal shifts of the film, and it only continues to broader strokes in “Jojo Rabbit”. Playing a teenage Jewish girl whose family and fiance have since been removed from the equation, leaving her stranded in isolation, McKenzie balances enough sarcastic wit to counter-balance her dramatic capabilities, and her character is one we mentally relay back to each time the Nazi’s take another freedom-breaking liberty. In addition, the work of Davis and Nick Frost junior sized Archie Yates captures a precision for comedic timing that most child actors simply can’t attain for their first few roles. Here, their jaw-dropping moral banter and endless supply of raw charisma puts them years ahead of their ages because of the maturity of the subject matter that they’re placed into. In addition, Waititi gives them no shortage of screen time, which in Davis’ case outlines an immense responsibility as the film’s jaded protagonist, who toes the line of moral ambiguity the longer the film progresses.

– Object incorporation. Waititi has an unmistakable eye for the details necessary to put the audience constantly one step ahead of the movie’s characters, giving it immense meaning to the visual storytelling that is sometimes just as moving as what’s spoken. In this film in particular, it’s the shoes of a prominent character that are focused on in two different scenes for an unnatural amount of screen time, and once you remember seeing them for the first time, you will understand the significance with how they pop up for a second time. It’s a bit obvious at times, but it rewards audiences for the way they commit themselves to the screen, and proves an intelligence for imagery captivation that captures so much emotional pulse to fill in the blanks of exposition necessary to comprehend the intention of its re-incorporation.

– Surprising dramatic depth. I certainly did not expect a comedy about a movie making light of the most vile faction in world history, but even more than that, I didn’t expect said movie to possess the kind of dramatic tension necessary in fleshing out some emotionally resonant material that catches up to your tears quickly. This is where the film really earned its grade for me, because as to where the humor element of the film let me down more times than not, it’s in one character’s epiphany while finally understanding the other side that played so prominently on-film, and maintained one of the more therapeutic sits that I’ve had recently with World War II drama’s. The humorous elements are still definitely there, but they never encroach or demean the punching power of the seriousness, and instead persist in giving us a fully fleshed-out narrative for the many characters you will inevitably fall in love with.

– Scope of the story. Speaking of characters, the film spends ample time on everyone minus maybe Rebel Wilson’s character, in order to capture the victimization from the many sides of the conflict. You would expect this for the tortured Jewish communities, or even the innocent German population who didn’t have a hand in an overall message of hate, and while the movie does present these narratives, it’s really the look inside of the Nazi camp itself that offers some startling contrasts. This is one of the only films that I can remember that values the deep down good men who were held captive by a tyranical reign. It’s important to understand that the movie doesn’t justify or condone the terrible things that they did regardless, but just that not everyone in the camp were swallowed by the evil that surrounded them. I feel it’s important to know and understand that position, even if the movie is a work of tremendous fiction.

– Timeless message. This is especially difficult during a specific time-frame of the movie’s setting to conjure up something that any generation can take away from the movie. The message of the film isn’t just that Nazi’s were terrible people, but that we as human beings should understand and accept people defined as different before we become those very same people who used genocide to justify their hateful message. This is resonating loudly now perhaps more than ever, as our current social landscape has cast a great divide between the world, that now has our own country feeling like two different ones at all times. The movie teaches us that curiosity and acceptance are two tools that will save us from dooming ourselves to repeat history, and prove we can all live and be free to practice whatever under one world. It’s a deep-rooted and convincing message in a movie where the lunacy of hate and prejudice is depicted for the silliness that it entails, but further than that, Waititi establishes that there’s plenty we can learn from even the darkest days of history to preserve our future.

– Clever poignancy. Just a quick observation here. I find it funny how in Waititi’s narrative the adults act like children, and the children act like adults. It offers a striking degree of ageism in role reversal in a way that caters to the gimmick of the story, all the while fleshing out the ridiculous things that each side says and does when read by someone who we in the outside world can identify with being against conventionalism in the rendered personality of the actor who dons it.

NEGATIVES

– Diminishing results. The humor itself is strong in its introductory period, specifically with the satirical direction of the montage training sequence. Then begins a noticeable decay of less impactful laughs the longer the film’s comedic direction persists. I’m not saying that I didn’t laugh occasionally during the movie. Particularly the interaction between Jojo and imaginary Hitler gave me more than enough clever instances of fantastical glee that feel very therapeutic to Waititi. However, the one joke premise gets old fast, and even with some angles being full of ridiculousness in their approach towards the Jewish people, I couldn’t bring myself to laugh at it regardless. It’s probably a good thing that the film evolved tonally when it did, because the humor muscle for the movie was fluttering in redundancy at around the forty minute mark of the film. I do believe in my heart that many people will love the level of hijinks and gags that the movie incorporates to the Nazi’s hatred of the Jewish community, but for me it loses its flavor fast in translating to 105 minutes of cinema.

– Lack of punch. Even though some of the humor aims at being audacious over offensive, the sensitivity of the direction taken with the social commentary for the time feels soft in its execution. This is a necessary mention because I feel like it always keeps the evilness of the Nazi’s themselves at bay, and the humor majority of the direction itself never allows you to fully hate their characters in the way you rightfully should. Aside from this, I was a bit disappointed at the experimentation with this being a satire. If nothing in the film is meant to be factual, then why not play with the result of the war, or tweak some things for the unpredictablity of the film? The film seems conditioned on sending its audience home without even a slight detection of testing their nerves, and safe is never the trait I thought I would feel about a comedy depicting Nazi’s.

My Grade: 8/10 or B+