- Film And TV
- 13 Jan 20
Film Review: Jojo Rabbit
TAIKA WAITITI'S NAZI SATIRE IS ABSURD – AND FUN!
Satire is harder than it looks. Ideally, it needs a razor-sharp focus, a reason to exist, and it needs to be audacious. Satire is meant to punch up – but in order to do that, you need a target, a motive, and one hell of a right-hook.
Jojo Rabbit is a comedy with a lot of jokes about how ridiculous the Nazis were. It's also about the idea of acceptance, trying to fit in, and not embracing bigotry and ignorance just because it's the norm that surrounds you.
Based on the novel Caging Skies by Christine Leunens, Taika Waititi's film is amusing. Set during World War II, 10 year old Jojo (Roman Griffin Davis) is a lonely boy who attends a Hitler Youth camp, is very proud of his uniform, plasters posters of Hitler on his walls, and fills the void left in his life by his absent father, and his distracted mother, with an imaginary friend: a goofy, wisecracking, "down with the kids" Hitler, played by Waititi, who nags Jojo with lines like "Heil me, bro! Youıre overthinking it! You can heil me better than that!"
This imaginary, flamboyant, tantrum-throwing, hipster Hitler is only slightly more absurd than the other adults who surround Jojo, such as Rebel Wilson's Fraulin Rahm, who encourages Jojo and his campmates to believe that Jewish people have devil horns, perform hypnosis and are covered in scales. But these are the kind of myths and lies that a child's imagination will latch on to, so Jojo falls for them, hook line and sinker – until he discovers Elsa (Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie, graceful, steely and fragile), the Jewish girl his mother (Scarlet Johansson) has been hiding in their house. The pair strike up a friendship that throws Jojo's whole worldview into question.
Griffin Davis is a wonderfully expressive young actor, and the film's Wes Anderson-like absurdity and great, Bowie-filled soundtrack are fun.
3/5
RELATED
- Film And TV
- 12 Sep 25
Comedy Central pulls South Park episode after Charlie Kirk's death
- Film And TV
- 09 Sep 25
The Lir Academy: Offering the highest standards of training to aspiring performers
- Film And TV
- 09 Sep 25
Irish chef Anna Haugh to host new series of Masterchef alongside Grace Dent
RELATED
- Film And TV
- 05 Sep 25
Steve Coogan and Éanna Hardwicke go in all studs blazing in Saipan
- Film And TV
- 04 Sep 25
DkIT Graduate Lauren Corlett: “I knew I needed something hands-on and creative”
- Film And TV
- 15 Aug 25