Movie Review: Nazi Comedy "Jojo Rabbit" Is Not-So Great

It’s a big swing, that’s for sure.

As Lizzo once opined, "blame it on the juice," and that’s precisely what I’m doing with Jojo Rabbit.

Taika Waititi, following a dream run that included 2016’s best movie, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, and the critically adored blockbuster Thor: Ragnarok, had enough clout in Hollywood to do whatever he wanted next. And apparently, what he wanted was to play a very silly Adolf Hitler.

It’s the kind of big, career-sabotaging swing you can only make when you’ve got enough goodwill (or 'juice') to ensure you can come back relatively unscathed if it doesn’t go precisely as planned. And to Waititi's credit, Jojo Rabbit—in which he plays goofball Hitler—isn’t a total miss. It has brilliant performances, a charming handmade quality (as with his other works) and a decent tonal balance between its moments of outright tragedy and slapstick comedy.

It is also, for exceptionally long stretches, very annoying. Why? Hard to pinpoint. The film, in its brazen audacity of concept and execution, does give off the feeling that the makers reckon they are absolutely crushing it, quite literally embodied by Waititi’s distracting turn as a cheeky Hitler. When the jokes don’t land—and often they don’t—you’re left wondering why Waititi went so broad, as it’s the more astutely observed human moments that make Jojo Rabbit worthwhile at all.

Based on Christine Leunens’ bildungsroman Caging Skies—adapted loosely by Waititi—the film opens with avid Nazi acolyte Jojo Betzler (Roman Griffin Davis) psyching himself up for a Hitler Youth camp. He’s given a pep talk by his imaginary BFF, Waititi’s ersatz Adolf, whose accent is more Aucklandian than Austrian. After suffering an injury, Jojo returns home mildly disfigured, to the care of his sprightly mum Rosie (a note-perfect Scarlett Johansson), where he grows suspicious of her anti-Nazi sentiment. Eventually, he discovers Elsa (Thomasin McKenzie), a Jewish teenager Rosie is hiding within their walls. Unsure whether or not to turn her in, he decides instead to study her, to help other Nazis identify Jews based on Elsa’s insights. As to why she doesn’t have horns, as he’d been warned by Captain Klenzendorf (Sam Rockwell), she explains that they don’t grow in until she’s 21. And so on.

This material is a minefield, almost always on the brink of making Nazis too sympathetic, turning Elsa’s friendship with Jojo into a problematic case of Stockholm Syndrome, and potentially making light of one of history’s greatest atrocities, seen from the eyes of the perpetrators. It’s spared from complete cancellation by the spiky and furious performance from McKenzie, who remains suspicious of Jojo, even as he "learns" that, actually, Jews are people too. Johansson, as a secret rebel, does miraculous work as a mother trying to find the sweet kid hidden inside her radicalised son, doing so with light and humour. Rockwell is also great as the swaggering Klenzendorf, who, just as in Three Billboards, gets a redemption arc of his own—though it’s another confused and murky one. He and the very funny Stephen Merchant, as a towering SS officer, unfortunately highlight Jojo Rabbit’s biggest problem: Couldn’t Waititi have made more of the Nazis, umm, unlikeable?

I see the thinking behind challenging past depictions of Nazis as literal monsters, because it’s essential we acknowledge history’s worst criminals as humans like us, lest we fail to learn from their brutality. However, almost all of the Germans here seem to be victims of circumstance. That may have been the case for some, or even many, yet why that’s of primary concern to Waititi, I don’t get.

There’s a way to make a dark comedy that goes in on the Nazis and doesn’t flinch from WW2. But Jojo Rabbit ain’t it. Maybe because, despite its supposed self-assuredness, it flinches often, never really raising the spectre of the Holocaust, only showing the corpses of those among the anti-Nazi rebellion rather than those most discriminated against, and generally diminishing the toll taken by Hitler’s reign, culminating in a final five minutes that ranks among the worst minutes of the year.

If Jojo Rabbit can be appreciated for adding anything to the zeitgeist—a time in which 'friendly Nazis' is not exactly the content we crave—it’s young Archie Yates as Yorki, Jojo’s best pal. This little guy is hilarious; the type of wunderkind Waititi is an expert at finding. I wish Waititi would go back to doing what he does best, rather than… whatever this is. New Zealand, come get your man.

2.5/5

In Australian cinemas Boxing Day. Rated M for mature themes, violence and coarse language.