Jojo Rabbit (2019)

REVIEW BY: ROBERT CHANDLER

I spent a long time avoiding JOJO RABBIT. 

Much like Benigni's LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL, which I eventually watched (early one morning before anyone else in the house was awake) a decade after it was released. I confess I have never watched Elem Klimov's COME AND SEE.

I'm not good at children and Nazis. The horror is obvious, and I already know too much about what happened.

I watched JOJO RABBIT last night.

I was ready to bale after the first fifteen minutes (comedy Nazis and whimsy, no thanks) but then the incident happened that stopped JoJo from participating fully in the war... and he returned home, allowing the film to bring the relationship between JoJo and his mother to the fore. It's this relationship which gives the film so much of its heart.

I think director Taika Waititi demonstrated a blend of innocence, arrogance, folly and skill in bringing Christine Leunens' novel to the screen. In the end, he somehow succeeded, delivering a film of considerable power. One that knows precisely which side it is on.

One of my favourite touches was Waititi using the shoes of the mother and son (and the tying of their shoelaces) to say something about who they were and how they felt about each other. He used shoelaces again to highlight change in another relationship JoJo has with an Anne Frank character he discovers in his house. The director utilised something trivial yet important, and universally accepted as a stage in one's life (to tie one's own shoelaces), to create a series of moments for the film that manage to be both tender and revealing. Moments which leave an indelible mark.

The cast is superb - Sam Rockwell, Scarlett Johansson, Thomasina MacKenzie - but, really, it fell on the actor playing JoJo to give the film its heart and soul. Roman Griffin Davis. Because of his performance, the film manages not to trivialise its context (too much) as it clings to the POV of the ten-year old child, colouring in the seduction and terror of the Nazis through his eyes.

I'd rather the talented Waititi attempted more films like JOJO RABBIT - even if he fails - than be sucked mercilessly into the STAR WARS / MARVEL vortex that has come to claim so many talented film-makers recently.

JOJO RABBIT is a powerful and courageous achievement in film-making.