Down, down, down the JoJo Rabbit Hole

Like people, films that rely solely upon charm end up being untrustworthy and ultimately lackluster. JoJo Rabbit is a film that relies solely upon charm. Written and directed by Taika Waititi, he also co-stars in this film as a young German boy’s imaginary friend in Nazi Germany. That imaginary friend happens to be Adolf Hitler. You might think it odd that a film that features Hitler as a little boys imaginary friend is charming, but this is precisely what Waititi wants you to accept, that it’s charming. The little boy is, of course charming, his mother is charming as are his Nazi mentors.

All of these charming characters might have made a good black comedy if they weren’t so damn charming and pointlessly so. Presumably an anti-hate message is behind this film, but it winds up spending far more time humanizing various Nazi’s than it does to acknowledge the very real humanity of Jew’s who had to hide in fear of extermination from those Nazi’s. Nazi’s who were hell bent on dehumanizing Jews. What an strange and muddled mess all this charm is.

Eleven year old Roman Griffin Davis makes his debut as JoJo (Johanes), the young German boy with a major fan boy obsession with Hitler and being a Nazi. His mother, Rosie (Scarlett Johansson) is the patient and charmingly doting mom who with mild annoyance tolerates her son fanaticism. JoJo soon discovers his mother is hiding a young Jewish girl, Elsa (Thomasin McKenzie) in the space behind the walls. Once this is discovered this seemingly unpredictable movie becomes tediously predictable. Tedious because each new revelation leads to another easy prediction.

Waititi is often hilarious as the imaginary Hitler and that’s really kind of weird. While the script is written by he, it is based upon Christine’s Leunens book Changing Skies. Having never read the book I couldn’t tell you how much Waititi deviates from it if at all, but Waititi’s Hitler hilarity is rooted more in empty charm than meaningful black comedy. It’s not as if this take strives to celebrate Hitler but that, in the end, only makes all the charming humor just plain weird.

JoJo’s unseen father is a soldier in Hitler’s army and has been missing somewhere in France as the movie takes place. Seemingly the imaginary friend is a kind of childlike replacement for that missing father. The weird thing is that Rose, in response to JoJo’s tantrum of wanting his father, puts on one of his uniform jackets left behind and smears ash from the fireplace across her face to affect a beard and speaks in the gruffest of terms to JoJo. Johansson portrays a stern father who is awkward in his affection towards JoJo.

That portrayal of JoJo’s father has much more plausibility than a charming goofy Hitler. Had Waititi toned down the goofiness and allowed this imaginary Hitler to be closer to how JoJo’s father seems to be it would be a lot less weird laughing at the humor. A young boy desperate for a father figure imagines Hitler as the ideal figure is a compelling idea. Too bad Waititi is so damned flippant about it.

That flippant attitude gets increasingly smug as an imaginary Hitler becomes a better fleshed out character than the young Jewish girl Elsa, hiding from Hitler and this Nazi’s. Elsa is a plot device. She is equally vulnerable and tough, which also seem to be devices intended to convince the audience that she is fleshed out. Elsa’s plight, however, takes a back seat to Nazi shenanigans and imaginary Hitler’s slapstick.

It’s a precarious balance to offer up a charming tale of horrific events and perhaps the first question that should be settled about such a balance is why should it be so charming? There are moments when that balance works like gangbusters. A scene where several Gestapo agents barge into JoJo’s house, his mother not home, JoJo goes through the ritual of responding “Heil Hitler” to each of the Gestapo agents who’ve heil Hitlered him. He’s terrified the Gestapo will find Elsa, but she appears to them pretending to be JoJo’s dead sister, also going through the empty ritual of “Heil Hitler” with the Gestapo.

It is a naturally tense scene that uses hilarity deftly to underscore the absurdity of it all. Sadly, this is the best that Waititi can muster with his precarious balancing act. The rest of the movie is largely scenes wobbling upon a high-wire threatening to plummet. It never really does plummet, but it never astounds like such a high-wire act should. It’s almost as if Waititi knows this and hopes to distract from the fact with style. Style over substance can be eye candy, but this story should be far more nutritional.

It is fitting that the vibrant technicolor like visuals white wash the war torn Germany JoJo lives in as we’re seeing this through his eyes. Still, once the consequences of living under Nazi Germany begin to stack up in tragic ways for JoJo that vibrancy of style becomes less and less appropriate. Instead of recognizing this Waititi opts to double down on it, featuring scenes with a gay Captain of the German army (Sam Rockwell) and his alluded to lover and second in command, Finkel (Alfie Allen) charging into battle with flamboyantly colorful uniforms as if to say “life is a cabaret ol’ chum.”

Sure, scenes like that also highlight the absurdity of war, but the decision to then to not show the violent demise of such characters only undermines their argument. Waititi often shoots for the sky and misses. Just because there is an “anti-hate” message (and just barely so) buried underneath all this empty charm and meaningless humor, the former doesn’t excuse the latter. This is not just a movie about a war torn Germany through the eyes of a child, apparently it was written and directed by a child too.

In the end, Waititi is just too caught up in what looks (or what might look like) cool. He is not nearly caught up enough in thinking all that coolness through. I think it is probably better to charm and tease an audience about hate than it is to lecture them, but empty charm is empty charm and just like people with their empty charm, this film wants you to do all the hard work and be grateful for the charm they provide. Enjoy the film for what it’s worth, slightly expensive but oh so colorful cotton candy.