Jojo Rabbit

A young boy dresses himself in Nazi attire, looks in the mirror with an equal dose of fear and courage, and declares that, at age ten, he is a man. Despite being a boy and somehow also a man, he has a friend to help him summon the strength to be the "bestest, most loyal" Nazi there is, and that friend not only is imaginary, but an imaginary form of Adolf Hitler. This is the opening of Jojo Rabbit, adapted from the novel Caging Skies by Christine Leunens (which is apparently radically different from this adaptation), the newest film directed by Taika Waititi.

The young boy is nicknamed Jojo (Roman Griffith Davis), a young German obsessed with Hitler and the Hitler Youth. His mother (Scarlet Johansson) is not. She walks a fine line between not criticizing a totalitarian regime that could throw her in a camp and trying to steer her impressionable son towards a path devoid of hate. She's up against fierce competition. Jojo attends a Hitler Youth camp run by an army captain (Sam Rockwell), where he is too scared and sympathetic to kill a rabbit in front of the others. Thus, he is mockingly nicknamed "Jojo Rabbit". Eager to prove that he's not a coward, he enthusiastically attempts to demonstrate his might by throwing a grenade, which deflects off a tree and injures him.

Sent home, he tries to find purpose and continue to support the Third Reich's efforts in the war. Imaginary Adolf (played here by the film's director and screenwriter, Waititi) reminds him that the bunny is actually brave, and so too, Jojo must be. But Jojo's efforts are complicated tremendously when he discovers that his kind mother is hiding a Jewish teenager (played by Thomasin McKenzie) in their house. Jojo has learned all about Jews in his Hitler Youth camp, and he is terrified.

I've heard Jojo Rabbit be described as a "love-it-or-hate-it" film. I fall into neither camp, but there is more to complain about than praise. Waiti's directing is mostly commendable, even if his screenplay lags from time to time. Making wise use of the Beatles' German version of "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" to help visualize for modern audience members what kind of a megastar Hitler was, he also shows that these kind of leaders often do not simply come to power violently and force all of their people to share their views. Even when they finally are out of power, the public might still be on their side. In 1952, a quarter of Germans still had a positive opinion of Hitler.

Waititi's actors, delightfully for the most part, fall in and out of terribly fake German accents. As an actor, his imaginary version of Hitler is kind of like an obnoxious older brother; for the film's poster, he's even giving Jojo bunny ears. Sprinkled throughout that performance are frequent rat-like mannerisms and an incessant, burning desire to be liked. Most of the other actors all commit to their roles, but with mixed results. Rebel Wilson as a Nazi mostly works, especially when she excitingly announces that their next activity is to burn books. But Rockwell's performance, just after winning an Oscar and then being nominated for another one, shows signs of phoning it in. Regarding Johansson, the motherly love she radiates for her son is palpable, and as an actor she has undoubtedly established herself as one of the finest around. In Jojo Rabbit, though, she can only do so much with what she was given. The rock-bottom scene of said material is when she tries to cheer Jojo up by impersonating his absent father, or something like that. Johansson is nominated this year for Marriage Story, a performance that is superior by far. She was also nominated for Jojo Rabbit, and in yet another year of Oscars so white, instead of nominating Jennifer Lopez, Zhao Shuzhen, Marsha Stephanie Blake, or others, Johnansson got two. Aside from Waititi, the young actor Archie Yates as Yorki, Jojo's best friend, is the only one whose comic chops appear natural. His cadence makes it sound like he has had years of experience with this kind of comic material. Davis and McKenzie also are commendable. Indeed, the young actors are usually more interesting to watch than the adults.

So if the acting and directing are mostly praiseworthy, that means the vast majority of the rest is not. If you want from this film to be a comedy in the same vein as Waititi's other renowned work, like Boy, What We Do in the Shadows, and Thor: Ragnarok, then you may be sorely disappointed. Jojo Rabbit does offer a few laughs, but most of the jokes are repetitious and predictable, serving as a master class in one-liners that only produce hints of chuckles.

But if you are not so much interested in the laughs and instead want to be inspired by a message of anti-hate, then this film is disappointing as well. Even as the film becomes more moving, it somehow also becomes less engaging and less interesting. The source material is, according to Leigh Monson at slashfilm, a critique not simply of the Nazi regime but of "toxic masculinity, confusion of possession for love, and the ways that men hold women hostage because they cannot cope with their own pain." The themes of Jojo Rabbit, however, only appear to be that Nazis are bad, and are projected through the quirkiness of Waititi's usual auteur style. Jojo Rabbit feels like it wants to be a grand movie about powerful ideas, and yet it mostly ends up feeling like a dud. It's a real shame, because the world needs more reminders that, believe it or not, Nazis and Nazism are bad, but Jojo Rabbit does not rise to the occasion to be such a vehicle.