Grade: B+
When I started seeing trailers for Jojo Rabbit last fall, it was not a priority for me. Then when it became a staple in the awards circuit, not to mention receiving an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture, it made me curious and surprised. “Isn’t that the one where they make fun of Hitler, by portraying him as a bumbling doofus?” – I thought to myself. It looked like a one-joke movie with a too-easy target. I was partially right.
Jojo Rabbit begins and ends strongly, with the perfect song choices in the opening and closing credits. 10-year-old Jojo Betzler is off to a Nazi youth camp in 1944 Germany. You’ll need to get over the fact that all the characters speak in English, for the convenience of the American audience. Fair enough. Jojo gets his nickname (the film’s namesake) from a scene where he is called upon at camp to prove his courage by killing a rabbit, but he has a moment of “cowardice” and sets it free in the woods. The plot follows Jojo as he deals with questioning his social and political identity, coming of age, the unexpected visitor he discovers his mother has been hiding in the attic, and not the least of which is his imaginary friend Adolph Hitler.
Taika Waititi is the director, and also plays Hitler, as a flamboyant, slightly effeminate, amusing idiotic Homer Simpson type. Only the boy can see him. He shows up just about everywhere, offers the kid a cigarette almost as frequently as I offer Altoids, and is the worst advice-giver. Sam Rockwell appears too, as one of the Nazi camp counselors, as it were. Scarlett Johansson is Jojo’s mother. Her performance in Marriage Story was astoundingly brave. She is equally as fearless here, but in a different way. She throws herself into this role with abandon, attacking this silly material head-on. She is a double Oscar nominee this year, for these two roles. I have a guess of what her Oscar clip will be for this film. I’m looking forward to seeing if I’m right.
Jojo Rabbit amassing so many high-profile award nominations reminds me of Green Book last year; the little movie that could, and ultimately did. It starts off as a formulaic sophomoric comedy that eventually puts on its grown-up shoes and tackles some serious material at the end, and gosh darn blang it if it doesn’t pull it off, for the most part. It’s messy and flawed, but strives for something. I’d rather see a movie like that than a serious one-note film that just sits there playing it safe. And it concludes in the coolest way I’ve seen since Zombieland: Double Tap. I am a sucker for the big flourishy endings.
Grade: B+
Film Reviews by Mark 
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