Certificate – 12A
Directed By – Taika Waititi
Starring – Roman Griffin Davis, Thomasin McKenzie, Taika Waititi, Sam Rockwell, Scarlett Johansson,
Running Time – 108 Minutes (1 Hour 48 Minutes)
Waking up at half four in the morning on a Saturday isn’t exactly the way I like to start my weekends. However, I needed to get the first train into London because I love Taika Waititi and Jojo Rabbit was my most anticipated film coming into the London Film Festival, which is why I’m reviewing it first.
So was the film an adult version of the classic BBC sitcom ‘Allo ‘Allo? Or was there more?
What is Jojo Rabbit About?
Jojo (Davis) is a lonely German boy who discovers his mother (Johansson) has been hiding a Jewish girl Elsa (McKenzie) in their attic. Aided only by his imaginary friend, Adolf Hitler (Waititi), Jojo must face his blind nationalism and loyalty as World War II comes to an end.
Is It Any Good?
There is a lot to love about Jojo Rabbit. The comedy, performances and direction are superb and Waititi smashes it out of the park when it came to these areas.
For a large part, the humour embedded gave it an ‘Allo ‘Allo feel. The fact the actors just brought an accent to their English voices brought continual joy for some reason. Especially in the case of Rockwell’s Captain Klenzendorf, Waititi’s Hitler and Stephen Merchant’s Captain Deertz.
Speaking of humour, Waititi it a great job of having it continue throughout the film and there never felt a down moment. Additionally, the filmmaker delivered a coming-of-age movie set in Nazi Germany something I never thought was possible.
The simplicity of the comedy is set in the stupidity of the regime, even though we can never forget it led to the murder of millions of Jews, that the Nazi’s were fucking idiots.
The comedy is only helped by the performances of the cast, no one was bad or out of place.
Davis gave a performance I’d love to see get nominated (probably a Golden Globe instead of Oscar) as you see Jojo grow up in front of us.
Elsewhere, I thought McKenzie was fantastic that gave Jojo another role model to look up to and was the lynchpin for the young kid to change his ways. The relationship between the two was sweet and had that little brother/big sister feel.
The way they reveal McKenzie was done brilliantly as we saw it through Jojo’s eyes like some sort of horror movie feel. This a performance that I could see the 19-year-old get some sort of nomination.
Meanwhile, you can see Waititi was enjoying making Hitler an idiot and as much of a child as Jojo and Rockwell plays a racist with a heart and loved the campness he brought to the character.
Finally and this is very important. I want to give Archie Yates’ Yorki a hug and easily the most loveable character in the film.
Anything Bad About The Film?
While it tried so hard to have some heart in the form of relationship between Jojo and his mum the big changing moment didn’t have the impact and it could’ve been handled differently.
Because while it’s fun pointing and laughing at Nazi’s in this satire, we could have seen how awful these bastards were and be a proper gut punish to the audience as lead us to routing for Jojo and Elsa
Verdict
A funny, satirical coming-of-age movie that’s brilliantly directed and had fantastic performances.
The Bear Cave 