Roman Griffin Davis and Scarlett Johansson give Jojo Rabbit enough warmth to make its awkwardness matter. Taika Waititi’s imaginary Hitler is funny in small doses, but the satire grows repetitive and the shifts into seriousness feel forced.
Jojo Rabbit is an uneven coming-of-age comedy whose satire rarely gets beyond calling Nazis ridiculous. Taika Waititi, who writes and directs, wants to make indoctrination comprehensible through a boy who treats Hitler as an imaginary friend. There is a useful idea here: a child can attach himself to something monstrous without understanding what it means. Too often, however, the film settles for making the attachment cute, then relies on the performances when cuteness is no longer enough.
Roman Griffin Davis gives Jojo enough uncertainty to keep him from becoming simply a child delivering grown-up jokes. The performance makes it possible to care about this boy without endorsing the rubbish he believes. Thomasin McKenzie, as Elsa, makes the central relationship worth attending to, although the screenplay places too much responsibility on it to explain why hatred is wrong. Their scenes together allow some doubt into a film otherwise rather pleased with its own good intentions.
Taika Waititi also plays Adolf, the imaginary Hitler, and the silliness has some value. We laughed at this dictator reduced to a boy’s imaginary companion, because the performance makes his authority look childish. But the same joke has to do too much work. Making Hitler ridiculous does little to explain the attraction of everything the child has been taught. Once the absurdity is established, further clowning brings diminishing returns, particularly when there are more interesting people to spend time with.
Scarlett Johansson gives Rosie a warmth that does not need the imaginary friend’s antics, and the film benefits from that quieter approach. Sam Rockwell’s Captain Klenzendorf, a Hitler Youth instructor, supplies a more knowing kind of comedy. Both performances suggest how much could have been achieved by trusting the actors and easing off the effort to be endearing. The problem is in Taika Waititi’s screenplay, which keeps asking humour to soften material that sometimes needs to remain uncomfortable.
Cinematographer Mihai Malaimare Jr. and production designer Ra Vincent make the setting attractive enough to support the fantasy, but that choice also makes the historical danger feel less immediate. We can see why a child’s imagined world should look inviting. We are less persuaded when that invitation extends to the film’s treatment of the adults around him. The attractive surroundings might have worked better with harsher comedy; here, the look and the affectionate jokes keep reassuring us when we ought to feel less secure.
Editor Tom Eagles has the awkward job of fitting broad farce beside scenes that ask for serious feeling. The changes in tone are too conspicuous: we keep noticing when the film wants us to stop laughing, rather than arriving at that feeling ourselves. Michael Giacchino’s music contributes to the sweetness, but cannot make those changes feel earned. At 108 minutes, the film has enough time for its story, yet it repeatedly interrupts our involvement to tell us which response it now wants.
A satire of indoctrination needs to show why people accept nonsense, including when it ceases to look amusing. Jojo Rabbit is more interested in the hope that they can be talked out of it, and that limits how hard its jokes can hit. Viewers interested in the childhood drama may find enough in the performances to forgive the comedy’s narrow reach. If the imaginary Hitler already sounds tiresome, the film is unlikely to change your mind.
