Jojo Rabbit

"Make her feel safe and she will drop her guard and then you will be the one in control."

"Reverse psychology?"

"Don't complicate things. Just use my backwards mindpower trick."

It feels weird to laugh along with Hitler. But Jojo Rabbit is a weird film. It's audacious. It's downright hilarious in places but in 2020 it's a very odd one to place.

Johannes Betzler (Roman Griffin Davis, excellent) is a young boy in the Hitler Youth during the late stages of World War 2. He's trying his hardest to live up the aul Adolf's ideals but when he can't even bring himself to kill a rabbit he earns his titular nickname and ends up delivering anti Jewish propaganda around his small town. He lives with his mother Rosie (Scarlet Johannson) who isn't exactly enamoured with his political beliefs and every day is a struggle to just survive as the approaching allied forces are having a huge effect on food supplies. All Jojo has is his friend Yorki and his imaginary friend Adolf (yup, that one). One day he discovers a teenage girl called Elsa (Thomasin McKenzie) living in the crawlspace of his house and he's horrified to learn she's a Jew. Now Jojo is torn between his ideology and his humanity. With the Gestapo executing traitors everyday just what will he do?

This film is weird as hell. Even by Taika Waititi standards it's a bizarre one. Warmth & kindness juxtaposed with atrocity. Slapstick humour leading into executions. A child's smile crumbling into a shrieking grimace. A film that takes aim at the evils of nazism but one that humanises them as well. It's a jumble, messy, a well meaning story but messy. A 12 cert look at one of the worst periods in human history. Awful, violent things happen but we never witness them, only the barest aftermath. A satirical look at the worst people shouldn't be afraid of showing them at their worst. There's stuff here you'll gasp at alright, children turned into suicide bombers, the ridiculous anti-semitic canards bought into wholesale by national socialists but it all feels tempered by Waititi's (and ultimately Disney who now own Fox pictures) unwillingness to go as dark as the material requires.

Oddness aside there's no denying some of it is very funny. Jojo's friend Yorki's line about the distinctly non Aryan look of certain Axis members is a proper belly laugh as his clumsy handling of munitions. Rebel Wilson's brusque and vicious Fräulein Rahm is an inspired creation and for once it gives her something to do instead of falling over or telling self deprecating weight jokes. Sam Rockwell who's always good value in a comedy role does well as Captain Klenzendorf, the drink sodden Hitler Youth leader who definitely wouldn't fit into the nazi idea of a master race. Waititi's sense of whimsy and quirkiness is present and correct here but it clashes constantly with the abrupt tonal turns a story like this has to take. It just doesn't sit right. This light and dark approach worked brilliantly with his last film, the wonder Hunt For The Wilderpeople but not so much against a non fictional backdrop. 

Roman Griffin Davis as Jojo does a lovely job though. The good nature of a child rebelling against the brainwashing of adults and the whole struggle painted across his face. Against all odds you'll find yourself empathising with a little nazi. Luckily Waititi himself plays the imaginary Hitler as broadly and nastily as possible so we never forget the bigger picture. The image of him and his ridiculous moustache bounding acrobatically around a forest is one you'll find hard to forget. This isn't a subtle film but he acts his part as bluntly and broadly as possible. Thomasin McKenzie's Elsa is well played but ultimately she's a plot point, a source of tension for Jojo and his mother. It would have been nice to see the film's outlier get a more well rounded part to play.

It's nice to see unusual films like this appearing in the cinema and chances are you'll never see anything like this again. It's just a pity it wasn't allowed to be riskier, allowed to have real weight and a real sense of just how dangerous hate can be. In a world that's rapidly heading to the right we need to be hit over the head with this fact because it just doesn't seem to be getting through to people.