JOJO RABBIT (2020) FILM REVIEW

****

12A, 108 Mins

Sneer if you want, it's your loss...

Having spiced up the intergalactic escapades of 'Thor: Ragnarok' (2017), New Zealand's King of Quirk Taika Waititi returns to his indie roots established in 'What We Do in the Shadows' (2014) and 'The Hunt for the Wilderpeople' (2016) with a spiky "comedy" about a Nazi youth bonding with a Jewish girl. Yes really!

Indeed, on paper, 'Jojo Rabbit's populist brand of imaginery Hitlers, anti-semetism and cutesy romance sounds like the most woefully misjudged mesh of ideas ever pitched to screen. It's perhaps unsurprising therefore that many critics have accused the film  - in the words of The Telegraph's Robbie Collin - of "sentimentalising the Holocaust". Having heard nothing, but gripes, one shuddered at the thought of another shameless exercise in awards-bait emotional manipulation in vein of Roberto Beningi's OSCAR-showered, but ill-conceived Holocaust heartbreaker 'Life is Beautiful' (1997). A fear that appeared to be backed up by 'Jojo Rabbit' scooping up the Toronto Film Festival's People's Choice Award (a well-known predictive of future OSCAR winners).

It's a relief to report that Waititi's film is neither nasty nor mean-spirited. In fact, you'd have to be pretty nasty and mean-spirited not to be touched by it. It's an unlikely coming-of-age winner with an uncomfortably raw edge.

Roman Griffin Davis stars as Johannes Betzler - a ten year old living at the heights of Nazi Germany in WW2. His titular nickname "Jojo Rabbit" comes from his puppyish refusal to snap a rabbit's neck when taking part in a Nazi youth camp overseen by Sam Rockwell's tyrannical army officer Captain Klenzendorf. These animal cruelty scenes - playing out against the chirpy sound of Germanized musical hits such as The Monkees's 'I'm a Believer' - are amongst the few occasions that the balance between schmaltz and button-pushing realism didn't sit right and almost had me walking out the cinema in disgust.

How thankful was I that the film should shift its attention to the domesticity of Jojo's home life. We discover his father is absent serving on the Italian front while his older sister recently died of influenza. Living in a passionately pro-Nazi household under the strict regime of an iron-fisted mother (Scarlett Johansson), Jojo finds himself conflicted between childhood innocence and the hatred preached by Nazi ideologies. A manifestation of this takes shape as a Schizophrenic-like apparation of Adolf Hitler (played by Director Waititi himself) who rather awkwardly provides Jojo's moral compass.

The greatest test of the young boy's life, however, comes when a Jewish girl named Elsa (Thomasin McKenzie) comes crawling out the basement like Alice Webster from 'The Missing' (2014-2016). Hiding from the Gestapo, Elsa and Jojo grow close and the latter begins to question everything he ever stood for...

As with any film about Nazism or the Holocaust, the question that begs for answers is whether such a film has sensitivity when approaching its subjects. In the case of 'Jojo Rabbit', however, calling it "sensitive" would defeat its purpose. This is a film that strives to absurdify the atrocities amplified by Waititi's gruelling, gurning Hitler hallucinations. It suggests that we should no longer take Hitler's hate at face value rather we should see it as something destined for the litter tray. Innevitably such an interpretation of these absurdities has proved problematic for a sizeable chunk of viewers and its unquestionable that this film will provide marmite responses far and wide.

Thank goodness then that a string of pathos should undercut the Martin McDonough-style insensitivity. Scarlett Johansson provides this pathos in spades as mother Rosie; balancing maternal love with steely resolve to wrenching effect. It's a role which's stoic lack of empathy wouldn't seem a stretch for Johansson's trademark toughness, but an unexpected twist adds a surprising dollop of warmth to a cold, calculating character. The actress's recent work in 'Marriage Story' (2019) isn't a patch on anything she accomplishes here.

Sam Rockwell's cartoonishly accented part is far more one-dimensional and, on the surface, requires audiences to simply heckle with horrified relish. And yet anti-semetic sacrafices made on his part to keep our protagonist from harm exemplify the film's most emotive bite.

The real stars, though, are the youngest cast members serving up two of the finest child performances I've ever seen. Roman Griffin Davis is outstanding as Jojo delivering the pefect encapsulation of conflict both domestic and world-weary through the doe eyes of a child. He has remarkable chemistry with the brilliant Thomasin McKenzie who - building on the success of 'Leave No Trace' (2018) - injects a welcome dose of nuance into a character who could have easily ended up a hackneyed Jewish stereotype.

There's an element of barbed wired 'Boy in Striped Pyjamas' buddying to the central 'Romeo and Juliet'-style pairing, but I found comparisons in the most unlikely places such as the guerilla-ridden gunfire of 'Monos' (2019). Like that film, a universality prevails in 'Jojo Rabbit's heartfelt portrait of stripped innocence to the point that, if you were to dispose of the Nazi Germany backdrop, poignant themes of children coming to terms with love, repressed rage and adolescence would still pack a weighty punch.

For a film pitched as a "comedy", it would seem, dare I say, "funny" that I should find none of it a laughing matter. Yet like 'Four Lions' (2010) - another "comedy" that absurdified real-world horrors - the fact that the film's subject matter makes you feel so genuinely unsettled is less a criticism of its comic prowess, rather an epitaph of its earthy grit.

​That's not to say this should be viewed as worthy "issuetainment". It needs to be championed as a tragic fable with an optimistic message about finding love in the most troubling of times. Sneer if you want, believe me, it's your loss...