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JOJO RABBIT (2019)
CAST
ROMAN GRIFFIN DAVIS
THOMASIN McKENZIE
ALFIE ALLEN
SCARLETT JOHANSSON
STEPHEN MERCHANT
SAM ROCKWELL
TAIKA WAITITI
ARCHIE YATES

BASED ON THE BOOK “CAGING SKIES” BY
CHRISTINE LEUNES

SCREENPLAY BY
TAIKA WAITITI

PRODUCED BY
CARTHEW NEAL
TAIKA WAITITI
CHELSEA WINSTANLEY

DIRECTED BY
TAIKA WAITITI

GENRE
COMEDY
DRAMA
WAR

RATED
AUS:M
UK:12A
USA:PG-13

RUNNING TIME
108 MIN


Awkward in tone and defective in humour, Jojo Rabbit takes on taboo subjects with satirical amusement its aim, yet instead achieves a ho-hum hipster reflection on issues above its pay grade.

Nazi’s have become all the rage these days. No, not the fascist ideology that rose to providence during WWII, but the irrational fear that the goose-stepping morons are anywhere and everywhere, especially on social media where #Nazi can trend at any given moment. JoJo Rabbit has all of the flimsy urgency and depth of such a hashtag, complete with the social justice warrior posturing that thinks what it represents is ground breaking and important, but proves to be a weak entry in an already crowded sub-genre of film.

Based on the 2008 novel “Caging Skies” written by Christine Leunes, Jojo Rabbit takes place in small German town during WWII, where 10-year-old boy Jojo (Roman Griffin Davis) has developed a fanatical obsession for Adolf Hitler and Nazism. Despite the concern of his mother Rosie (Scarlett Johansson), young Jojo’s obsession leads him to develop an imaginary friend in the form of the Hitler (Taika Waititi). When Rosie’s clandestine efforts for the allies leads to a Jewish girl named Elsa (Thomasin McKenzie) hiding in Jojo’s home, the young Nazi in training is perplexed by her humanity and his feelings of love towards her.

As directed and scripted by Taika Waititi (Hunt for the Wilderpeople), the distractingly aloof and awkward Jojo Rabbit often keeps its viewers at arm’s length with its goofy, cartoon-like world building, that tries to evoke Wes Anderson, yet comes nowhere near the creativity and playful engrossing nature of Anderson’s films. Waititi has long had a playful nature to his films, which is especially evident in his offbeat deadpan humour. While this has worked with Wiaiti’s other films, it just doesn’t blend with the very serious subjects featured in Jojo Rabbit. The world building rings false, characters are shallow with their eye-winking pantomime nature, and the stakes are non-existent to the point where the deaths of key characters have the same emotional impact of Wild E. Coyote falling off a mountain.

Where Jojo Rabbit does succeed is in casting of young actors Roman Griffin Davis and Thomasin McKenzie. Whenever Waititi steps away from his deadpan awkward shtick and allows his characters to breath – especially Jojo and Elsa – does the film find grounding and generate some stakes to the proceedings.

But too often than not, this satire dissolves into over-the-top silliness. This is especially evident whenever Waititi himself appears as Hitler, which offers nothing more than annoying bluster and distraction. Waitit’s take on the evil madman says much about Jojo Rabbit as a whole: a film about hatred, yet one that refuses to treat the subject with the seriousness it deserves.

In the end, Jojo Rabbit just proves to be a silly movie, rather than be a film that proves how silly hate can be.

**

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