Jojo Rabbit review – well-executed very serious farce

Making a comedy about the Nazis is a bold and immensely dangerous undertaking. For every example of it working, usually at a slight remove – as in the case of Mel Brooks’ The Producers – there is another Life is Beautiful, a tone-deaf wallow in cheap sentiment and jaw-droppingly inappropriate moments of levity. Some directors, such as Quentin Tarantino, simply serve up bloody wish-fulfilment instead, but Taika Waititi has set out his stall with Jojo Rabbit to make what can only be described as a very serious farce. If it doesn’t entirely work, then at least its ambition is laudable. Its execution is about as accomplished as one could have hoped for.

The setting is Germany at the end of the Second World War, and the ten-year old protagonist Johannes “Jojo” Betzler (Roman Griffin Davis) is a devoted would-be Nazi, so much so that his imaginary friend is none other than a cartoonish version of Hitler himself (Waititi), given to speaking in a kind of fascist version of Valley Girl slang. His resourceful mother Rosie (Scarlett Johansson) has managed to stay on the right side of the authorities, but Jojo learns, to his horror and disgust, that a real-life Jewish girl, Elsa (Thomasin McKenzie) is being hidden in their attic. Yet, as the Gestapo close in and the situation becomes ever more perilous for them all, Jojo begins to wonder, like Mitchell and Webb in their famous sketch, whether he has, in fact, been on the wrong side all along.

Jojo Rabbit has received some surprisingly negative reviews from critics in Britain, many of who seem to have been offended by Waititi’s full-on vision. It’s reminiscent, tonally and in its major plot device, of Fight Club as it moves between cartoonish comedy and disturbing violence, sometimes even in the same scene, and Waititi has directed his cast accordingly. In supporting roles, Rebel Wilson and Stephen Merchant, as Nazis, don’t so much chew the scenery as take doggy bags and make sure that they’re going to be snacking on it for days afterwards, although Sam Rockwell finds some nice grace notes in his performance as the jaded alcoholic one-eyed Captain Klezendorf, whose own devotion to the regime that he has spent his life serving is more questionable than it should be. McKenzie’s performance is very touching as the frightened yet resilient Elsa, at one point improvising her way out of a potentially fatal situation with flair, and Johansson is particularly good in a tricky role that allows her to be both warm and flamboyant, combining maternal affection with something looser and wilder.

Whether one likes Griffin Davis’s performance in the lead role is more of a matter of taste. In a sense, Waititi (adapting the screenplay from Christine Leunen’s book Caging Skies) has written an almost unplayable part, because a small child has to be both ragingly dislikeable and, as the sources of his neuroses become clear, increasingly sympathetic. Although Griffin Davis does a decent enough job, he too often is saddled with looks of petulance and irritation. And this is what will ultimately prove divisive about Waititi’s film. There is nothing wrong with laughing at the Nazis, as both Charlie Chaplin and Ernst Lubitsch realised decades ago, and if this had been conceived simply as a wacky comedy, it could well have worked sublimely on that level.

Amid the jokes and absurdities, it is quite clear that Waititi is striving for Meaning and that he wanted this to be An Important Film. One particular joy of his earlier work, including by far the most enjoyable Marvel picture, Thor Ragnarok, and his vampire farce What We Do In The Shadows, was the sublime lightness of touch, but here the contrast between the absurdities of his intentionally OTT performance as Hitler and the hideous realities of what life was like under fascism often feels too great. We see resistance members hanged in the square, but the absurd characters that we are invited to laugh at seem incapable of doing their own shoelaces up, let alone operating in a regime of fear and suspicion. The film concludes with a quote from Rilke, who is referred to throughout; it suggests “let everything happen to you/Beauty and terror/Just keep going/No feeling is final”, but many will feel that the sentiments have not been borne out in the previous hour and three quarters.

Still, there is still much to enjoy in Waititi’s film, which may very well put in a strong showing at the BAFTAs and Oscars next month. It has a warm heart, a righteous sense of anger that makes the laughs seem earned and, in McKenzie, an extremely promising performer who does wonders with a very difficult, if ultimately highly rewarding, role. And as a bonus, it has what will undoubtedly be the year’s best use of the words “f*** off, Hitler” at its climax.