Roman Griffin Davis, Taika Waititi, and Scarlet Johansson in Jojo Rabbit (all images courtesy Fox Searchlight)
The marketing for Jojo Rabbit, fearing any misconstruing of a film set in Nazi Germany, consistently made sure that we know that it is “An anti-hate satire.” That tagline is half right. The movie couldn’t be mistaken for endorsing hate, but it is not a satire. It is in fact consistently sincere, if laced with wry humor, fully in keeping with the rest of writer-director Taika Waititi’s filmography. That it aims for such a whimsical tone within the context of Nazism may make it nonetheless off-putting for some, but considering that subject matter, it’s a surprisingly tame movie. I was left wondering what it would be like if it followed through on any satirical possibility.
After all, the film has a strong hook to start out with. The title character, Johannes Betzler (Roman Griffin Davis), is a devoted Deutsches Jungvolk member whose “best friend” is an imaginary version of Hitler (Waititi). There’s tremendous potential there for a humorous portrait of fanaticism, of the personal side of fascism as it hits its end-state death drive. We are assured early on, though, that Jojo is a sweet boy. He gets his titular nickname because he’s unable to kill a bunny as commanded at scouting camp. An attempt to prove his mettle with a grenade instead ends up disabling him, voiding any possibility of him being conscripted as a child soldier. Jojo thus spends his days in solitude, until he discovers that his mother Rosie (Scarlett Johansson), a secret anti-Nazi, has hidden a Jewish girl, Elsa (Thomasin McKenzie), in their crawlspace. Getting to know her upends Jojo’s worldview, and he comes to question his indoctrination.
Thomasin McKenzie and Roman Griffin Davis in Jojo Rabbit
All that is wholesome enough, but interrogating the underlying logic leaves the film looking quite strange, and not because of any “quirky” humor about a Hitler figment acting goofy with a young boy. Why, precisely, do so many films about “fighting hate” decide that the best way to do this is to redeem or soften racists? We see this in everything from Green Book (which was rewarded with multiple Oscars) to Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (also fêted) to Where Hands Touch (which was thankfully rewarded with nothing but delayed disdain) to The Best of Enemies (which no one really cared about at all, though it is notably the third film mentioned in this article to star Sam Rockwell, man what are you doing). Jojo comes to understand the error of his ways through getting to know Elsa as a human and unlearning the ideas he’s been taught about Jews. This is good for warming hearts but a completely irrelevant framework for reality; we can’t pair up every racist with a minority to teach them better. It also means the film is technically starting from the same premise that racists come from, that marginalized people have to work to prove their humanity.
The film is set during the end of World War II, and its characters find their Aryan utopia collapsing around them by the climax. Since they’ve been put forth as “adorable” versions of Nazis, their eventual slaughter at Allied hands is strangely similar to what you might expect to see in a legit Nazi film, so sympathetic are they. This only fueled my projections of what an actual satirical handling of this material would look like. What if Jojo’s faith never wavered? If he turned in his mother immediately upon discovering the Jew in their attic? If the film just kept showing him doing increasingly awful things with a smile on his face? If it ended with him gleefully charging Red Army soldiers with his best pal Hitler at his side? It would be deeply disturbing, very few would find any dark humor in it, and it would be a perfectly rendered picture of the fascist mindset. That doesn’t win you Oscars or People’s Choice Awards at film festivals, though.
Sam Rockwell, Scarlett Johansson, Roman Griffin Davis, and Rebel Wilson in Jojo Rabbit
Jojo Rabbit opens in theaters October 18.
It’s nearly impossible to make a film about Nazi Germany even though it’s become a rats nest of tropes and multiple genres and an industry of sorts.
The documentary footage that was shot during the liberation of the concentration camps are real ,defy description and overwhelm everything else. Alfred Hitchcock’s footage was only released recently as it was so disturbing. In this light this film is twee, fey and offensive.
I appreciate your critique. But after just having spent 6 months in America…I get the feeling you’re living in a part of America far far from surburban and rural Trumpland. Any movie that can awaken some self awareness within a Trump supporter is much needed. I don’t see how portraying Nazis as monsters does any good, as most monsters never realize they’re monsters. How are today’s Trumpsters supposed to see the error of their ways if Nazis are always portrayed as some other, foreign and alien evil with no resemblance to how benign and disguised evil can actually be?