Man, has Taika Waititi been having the decade of his life.
He directed two critically-acclaimed indie comedies, directed an MCU flick, and starred in the highest-grossing movie of all time, which is also an MCU flick.
Gee whiz.
I feel extremely confident that Taika Waititi will receive his first Oscar for his best film to date, “Jojo Rabbit”, a brilliant, wholly original movie that not only is considered a comedy, but more so of a war movie, too.
Jojo (played by Roman Griffin Davis) is a 10-year old boy living in Nazi Germany during World War II. In his daily life, he participates in a Hitler Youth Camp to try to be involved in Hitler’s army (basically to be considered a Nazi) led by Captain Klenzendorf (Sam Rockwell).
Meanwhile, Jojo is ordered to kill a rabbit and he downright refuses to portray such animal cruelty. That means his fellow Youth Camp students (minus his friend Yorki) start to bully him hence the name “Jojo Rabbit”.
An imaginary and friendly Adolf Hitler (played by Taika Waititi) comes out hiding from a tree and both have a pep talk about what just happened.
When arriving at his home, Jojo suddenly hears unlikely noises upstairs and what is it you may ask? Well, Thomasin McKenzie plays a teenage girl named Elsa, whom Jojo’s strict mother (Scarlett Johansson) hides under the house attic because she is considered a jew whereas his family are Nazis.
While Jojo discovers Elsa’s personality, Elsa warns him that his mother would be killed for hiding her. Jojo soon starts to keep Elsa safe once and for all as she is revealing Jewish secrets as a book for Captain Klenzendorf and the Gestapo (Stephen Merchant).
Waititi might have just created one of the five best screenplays of 2019 that will be become awards season-hungry later this year.
What I truly love about “Jojo Rabbit” is what Waititi has to say about how war isn’t good for our world and how it inflicts children (or even anyone), which is such a heavy and powerful subject for him to tackle on. He advertised this as an “anti-hate” movie and it totally shows.
This movie brings strong commentaries from both the Nazi perspective and the Jewish perspective where it is deeply effective in this horrible society of World War II.
Waititi perfectly blends serious war drama and satirical comedy in various spots whenever it feels appropriate, which you do not get in most recent comedies.
Whenever it goes into satire mode, it is gut-busting hysterical especially with the performance of Taika Waititi as a friendly, but imaginary Adolf Hitler. Yes. I do mean that Rebel Wilson is also funny in this, too.
My favorite joke and maybe one of my favorite lines of this year is the Gestapo making everyone repeat “Heil, Hitler!” at Jojo’s house.
God, that was good.
However, the way I look at “Jojo Rabbit” is not really quite a satire. It may be at times a hard watch considering not just the themes it establishes, but for different audiences expecting that type of movie. The scenes where World War II starts to occur in the movie is deeply scary to witness that it is very much on par with “Hacksaw Ridge”.
The acting in this movie has so much A-game put into it that it would also be worthy to win a Screen Actors Guild award for Best Ensemble (albeit “Avengers: Endgame” might sneak in).
Roman Griffin Davis as Jojo delivers one of the best child debut performances of the decade.
He breathes into his character so naturally and understands the importance of not just being a Nazi, but living through the dreadful World War II as a child. It is one of those rare, vicarious performances that come a couple that truly define a Best Picture winner. With that being said, Davis desperately needs more acting work.
The same goes for Thomasin McKenzie as Elsa. She is becoming to be one of the next best young actresses working today wonderfully playing an isolated Jewish girl that later becomes a friend to Jojo.
Scarlett Johansson plays a great mother to Jojo perfecting her German accent. There is a really emotional scene where her character shows Jojo dead bodies hanging in the town square and tells him to not look away because that was life in Nazi Germany.
Not too many people give credit for Mr. Sam Rockwell as Captain Klenzendorf. This is the kind of Rockwell that gets out of character like playing William Wharton, a prison inmate in “The Green Mile”. You could tell that he took notes from how a Nazi captain behaves. He truly gets into his character in high fashion.
Other than a couple small pacing issues, “Jojo Rabbit” works flawlessly in many different genre forms as a coming-of-age film, a war dramedy, and (as Waititi advertised it) an anti-hate film. Everyone should get their butts off and go see this movie that will possibly receive Waititi’s first Oscar for his wonderful script.
Grade: 9.5/10
