Jojo Rabbit Crucial Review

 

I've never been more worried about a movie in the same way as I was with Jojo Rabbit. I was watching the 2020 Oscars and this movie stuck out to me much more than any other. And not in a good way. I saw this movie get nominated for a ton of awards and even win Best Adapted Screenplay. And based off of the few clips I saw, I was horrified. "Why is there a Comedy about Nazi-Germany in the middle of World War II where Hitler is the main protagonists best friend? And why are you making a comedy about war in general? This is the absolute last thing I would choose to write a comedy movie about!".  

While horrified, I also knew that at some point I was going to watch this movie out of pure curiosity. And yesterday I finally did. And let me just say it definitely wasn't what I was expecting. It is so much better. By the end of this experience, I was amused, entertained, shaken, and absolutely amazed at the beautiful film I had just witnessed. And I wanted to be able to talk about it to the extent and depth it deserves. So here it is. Jojo Rabbit's crucial review.   

As you read during the intro, I had my doubts going into this movie, and it never fully put them to rest on my first viewing. The tone sort of disgusted me and it was hard for me to feel invested in the story. But eventually by the second and especially third act it won me over. But not entirely. Jojo Rabbit suffers from the same issue one of my personal favourite Disney movies, The Hunchback of Notre Dame does. It is a tonal disaster.  The movie is plagued with not knowing what it wants to be. Jokes and comedic elements are shoved in between some really powerful scenes. Evident when Jojo sees the Jewish people who were murdered in the city square, and even the final battle where the Allies invade Jojo's town. That scene is an absolutely stellar climax and the muffled, slightly slow motion sequence is just artistic. But still there's times in it where the movie is trying to tell jokes and that weighs it down significantly. 

I hated the tone going into the movie, but on the rewatch I liked it significantly better. Once I knew the direction they were taking the story, I could watch and enjoy the movie much more and even laugh at most of the jokes. I could also respect the tone of the movie much more on the second watch. I see now that the first act's tone emulates how Jojo's susceptible mind feels about Adolf Hitler and the war. He had grown up seeing Nazi propaganda all around him and that would warp a young child's mindset about right and wrong. And the movie displays this through film phenomenally. 

That being said the tone shifts are a bit abrupt and could be built up more. For example one second Jojo's running around and happily burning books with the rest of his fellow Hitler youth, the next we see a haunting scene where the teenage instructors try to force him to strangle a live rabbit on the spot, which is a  perfect way to show how heartless and cruel Nazi Germany expected people to be even from a young age. 

Another example of abrupt tone shifts would be the absolutely beautiful and poetic scene in the second act where Jojo and his mother see the hung Jewish people in the center square. 

"What did they do?"

"What they could"...

This is one of the best scenes of 2019. 

The way they transition it could be better but it still works. Jojo is pasting up some new Nazi propaganda as instructed by his Nazi youth center. He walks around town to cheerful German music, and then finds his mother in the town square, staring at the unjustly murdered dead Jews hanging right in front of them. The German music is abruptly stopped and drowned out by absolute silence. Scarlett Johansson's character just stands there, with a look that says it all and yet has perfect subtlety. You see the mixed feelings of sympathy, remorse, and disgust conflicting inside her. And on the rewatch you can tell she fears for her safety, the safety of the Jewish girl she's protecting, and the safety of her son. And then my favourite moment in the movie happens, Jojo turns to look away, just like so many people have done to ignore the mass murder their country has brought, and his mother turns his head back and forces him to look, to see what this war has brought and what his hero, Hitler, has done. This scene speaks so many volumes to us and yet it's done with almost no words, and then the best line in the film is spoken. "What they could." The

Jewish did nothing to provoke this and only ever did what they could to survive it. Scenes like this are what make good, believable character development.

Then right after that, another remarkably well done scene comes where Jojo finds the Jewish girl that his mother is hiding from the Nazis. From the Disney+ description of the movie, I knew what was going to happen here, but the suspense was still, hitting me hard, and when he was crawling through the mysterious corridor he found in his walls, I was genuinely scared. This is thanks in no small part to the absolutely sensational score. It lets us feel every thought of fear and worry going through Jojo's head as he crawls deeper into the dark. This is the first time I noticed how brilliant a score was for myself rather than have someone point it out for me on YouTube later. I had watched movies like E.T, Up, or even Jurassic Park many times before and loved them, but never noticed their phenomenally great scores until I watched YouTube reviews of them after because apparently back then I was TASTELESS AND HEARING IMPAIRED. Those scores are legendary! And to finally be able to hear a score on my own on the first watch felt like a really big accomplishment in my moviegoing life. I later googled the composer of Jojo Rabbit to see who I could give my thanks to, and the result did not surprise me at all. Of COURSE it was Michael Giacchino, that man is one of the greatest living composers of the modern era! He is one of two cinematic composers who, in my mind, could stand toe to toe with the great composers Mozart, Beethoven or Bach. (The other of course being John Williams. The greatest composer I've ever heard). Michael Giacchino is behind some of the greatest scores in the medium of animation, and film in general. He is responsible for Ratatouille, The Incredibles, Inside Out, and even the award winning score of Up. If anyone was going to be behind the first score I ever noticed on my own, it was him. Something else I like about this scene is how it portrays the Jewish refugee differently from other movies of a similar storyline. In most movies like this that I have seen, they make the Jewish person quickly warm or kind to people around them, or even scared of the person that finds them. No. Not this time. This girl is rightfully pissed at Jojo and is not pulling any "good cop bad cop" crap here. She has the upper hand over Jojo, a person who stands for the thing that has taken everything from her and is now going to get her killed, and she exploits it and scares Jojo into staying quiet. I haven't heard enough people talking about this part and I want to bring it to attention because it's just one of many smaller details that make this movie great. 

Then we get a beautiful and heartfelt conversation between Jojo's mother and the Jewish girl she's protecting. I have nothing to say about t I just want to point it out too. Scarlett Johansson has another brilliant acting moment, and her line. "As long as there's [A Jewish Person] still alive, then they lose, they didn't get you today or yesterday, make tomorrow the same." This movie is written to absolute perfection. 

Then we have my favourite scene in the movie. The dinner with Jojo and his mother. I love this so much that I can only attempt to describe its greatness with words. But let me try. Jojo has just learned that his mother is protecting a Jewish girl from the Nazis. And he still believes in the genocide of all Jews, making him furious at her. But he can't tell her outright what he's mad about, so he becomes very irritable, trying to find ways to express his anger towards her in different ways, like when he slams on the table and yells at her for being happy that Germany is losing the war. Sensing that Jojo is going to soon kill the vibe, his mother shuts it down by saying "Dinner is neutral ground, this table is Switzerland". So listen, this movie definitely has some objectively better lines than that, but this is the one I think I'll be remembering for longer, it's just so spectacularly clever. 

Then Jojo sees that his mother isn't eating her dinner, realizing she's going to give it to the Jewish girl when he's in bed. And then, with the most smug expression I've seen a child actor give in a movie. He eats it for her so it "Won't go to waste". This is his way of getting back at the Jewish girl, and as wrong and horrible as it is, it's really funny. Come on. 

Then this scene has another abrupt tone shift, except this time it works because the way the characters have their conversation makes it feel more natural. Jojo tells his mother how he's a deformed kid with nothing to live for, and as she tries to comfort him, he tells her this absolute dagger to the heart: "I wouldn't expect you to understand, if my father were here, he'd get it. But instead, I'm stuck here with you".  That's when you see the mother's mood completely change, she quickly storms off, dresses up as Jojo's father, and just yells at him. She has been bottling up this fear and disappointment and anger towards Jojo's beliefs for all this time, and here she finally gives up and lets it out for a brief second. i love this scene, it's equally hilarious and heart shattering at the same time and it's cinematic perfection and Scarlett Johansson shows us she's more than an MCU superhero actor. 

Another thing I want to talk about is how perfect the relationship between Jojo and the Jewish girl (Who's name I now realize is Elsa), develops. For the first bit they start hating each other, then Jojo begins to show interest in her and her people, making her comfortable enough to tell him about her late fiancée, Nathan, and how he's in France fighting for the resistance. Then she hands the paper back to Jojo, who told her to draw where the Jewish live, and it's just an insulting picture of his head. She then tells him that's where they live. This may seem like another insulting joke to Jojo, but it's actually a clever way of telling him that the Jewish people he thinks of aren't real and only exist in his head because other people put them there. 

Then Jojo, not knowing Nathan is dead, decides to write a breakup later from him to deliver to Elsa. And then a majour plot point occurs. Seein g how devastating this trick letter was to Elsa, Jojo makes up another one to try and make her feel better. Elsa, who knows this is just a trick letter as Nathan died last year, realizes that Jojo's making a fake letter to comfort her and realizes that maybe there is some actual good in this kid. I love this particular part because you can tell it's a majour point in the movie without it yelling that in your face. Nothing happens that explicitly tells you this is important to the overall story structure of the film, and you're allowed to connect the dots on your own, it has subtlety, something modern cinema needs more of. From then on, the two begin to grow a friendship bond of some sorts. Jojo slowly gaining sympathy towards Elsa is exactly what character development should look like in a movie.

A few more scenes pass, Jojo and Elsa become good friends, and he and his mother reconcile. Then this comes up. Jojo answers a knock on the door to find German inspectors at his front door. This scene made me feel sick to my stomach,  My heart was in my throat this entire time, and the stakes are at the perfect height. And the facial expressions and acting of Roman Griffin Davis make them feel so real and elevate the scene even more. 5 Nazis are looking around Jojo's house trying to find the Jewish girl he'd just become friends with. And when it looks like they've found her she dresses up like Inge, Jojo's dead sister, who the movie has established the perfect amount as a character to make this work and feel relevant. From then on I just couldn't breathe. The head inspector interrogates her for a minute about who she is and then tells her to go get her citizen papers. Then my favourite character in the movie finally gets to shine. Captain K. Asks "Inge" when her registration photo was taken and what the date of birth on the card said. And to the relief of the two children, she guessed right, or so they thought. Turns out she was 6 days off on her date of birth and Captain K. protected them from being exposed. And my heart just melted at that point. They were safe. For about 5 more minutes of runtime. 

The inspectors leave and Jojo tries to continue his life. He is walking around town seeing the military getting trained for battle, and then the movie hits us with an absolutely devastating blow to the heart. 
Jojo walks around town for a bit longer and then stumbles upon town square. Finally beginning to see the beauty in his life, and then he sees it, and his life as he knows it is torn to shreds, along with his heart. Jojo is following a butterfly flying along the ground, beginning to feel knew happiness, and then, he stops and sees his mother's red shoes, still on her dead body in a shot with nearly all color drained out to provide a miserable, gray atmosphere. She was hung for harboring a Jew. After this scene I don't think I fully recovered. And Roman Griffin Davis' acting is heartbreaking here. The worst part of it all is, he never got to tell his mother she was right, she had always hoped that Jojo would realize the right way to live, and he finally did, but she never got to live long enough to see it. he then goes back to his empty home with his knife to kill the Jewish girl for revenge, that close to finally tipping over to the dark side forever, unable to come back, but he stops himself because his mother taught him that isn't the answer. He then falls asleep watching bombs fall over his city, seeing the hardships the war he supported all this time has brought other places, and having his blindfold of fanaticism permanently ripped off. 

And then the climax finally falls upon us. A beautiful, slow motion, muffled sequence where Jojo and hi friend Yorki run to find safety among an allied invasion of Germany. I do have problems with how there's a few out of place jokes in this scene that I pointed out earlier, but for the most part this is a stellar scene that excels beautifully in bringing the war to the movie. Then the allies win and capture all of the remaining Nazis, liberating Germany and the Jewish people. And as if this movie wasn't sad enough, the final blow to what was left of my ability to keep my composure happened. Jojo walks around seeing the new Germany, and the soldiers from the allied forces. He is taken by a soldier one of the areas where the Allies put the surviving Nazis, and he finds Captain K. Still in the flashy uniform he designed with Jojo, sitting against a wall. Jojo soon realizes they are going to shoot the rest of the Nazis dead. Including him. And Captain K realizes how scared he is. He then comforts Jojo like the father figure he's been for the whole film, shows that he is a tender and loving guy. His last words to Jojo are: "Now go home and look after that sister of yours, and then he stands Jojo up, rips off his Nazi uniform and yells at him like he's a Jew, saving his life. But not his. Jojo is carried away by a soldier, screaming at them not to hurt Captain K. As was I. He is then shoved away by the soldier, who yells at him to go home. And I'd like to just say quickly, I love when a movie doesn't paint every single member of the morally correct army as perfect people, just because they are fighting for what's right, doesn't mean they are good people. (Another good example of this is Cold Mountain where a group of Yankees commit a bunch of crimes on a woman's house and family). Even though their side was right, they can still be horrible people. And that was the case a lot of the time. 

And with that, the last we hear of Captain K is his death to the hands of an Allied soldiers SMG. This is the most I have cried at any movie death in the 21st century. Jojo's mother's death was horrible and very sad, but this just hit even worse. Hell, this is the most I've cried at any movie scene in general of the 21st century. And yet, I was still smiling. Because even in death, he was the nicest character in the movie.  Then, with almost nothing left in his life to care about, Jojo trudges home. Where he is greeted by his imaginary Hitler. (He also tells the Jewish girl that Germany won the war. Which I don't understand so I won't even try.)

But anyways, the last thing I would like to talk about is Taika Waititi's Hitler.

This was the aspect of the film I was most concerned about going in. I wondered to myself "Why?" Why is Hitler in this movie? Why is he Jojo's imaginary friend? Why the hell did Taika Waititi CHOOSE to play this role? I didn't think that Hitler's character in this would matter at all to the story, however, he's actually kind of crucial in the grand scheme of this. Hitler works as a perfect contrast to Jojo's arc in this movie. Jojo starts out blinded by his fanaticism towards Hitler, who emulates how Jojo thinks of him at the start. Jojo thinks of Hitler as a kind, helpful leader with his best intentions at heart. Then during the second act when Jojo begins to see glimpses of the real world, Hitler begins to show glimpses of his real self, showing us the way Jojo could have been had he continued down the path Hitler led him down. Then in the third act, Hitler finally takes off his mask and becomes the real him. Trying to force Jojo back to Nazi beliefs. As Jojo keeps going higher as a character, Hitler sinks deeper and deeper into the darkness of Nazi beliefs, and watching his slow slip from that fake cheer and friendliness, to the evil dictator he truly is magnificent. All of this is taken further with some truly great acting by Taika Waititi. It's truly great to see him take the money he made from Thor: Ragnarok and put it towards great movies that excel in creativity and quality. I cannot wait to see what this man has in store for us later on. 

 
This movie is about overcoming blind fanaticism and forming your own opinion in a world that tries to tell you what to think. And they develop Jojo's journey through this path amazingly. The first act demonstrates how Jojo has a rigid, unchangeable opinion on the world around him, the second act is where we see things that begin to challenge his opinion and let him start to see the things around him in a clear light, and then the third act is when we see him fully understand the world around him and have his opinion finally changed for the better. After my first viewing, I gave this movie 7 and a half stars out of ten, bordering on 8 stars. But then over the past few days it has stuck with me, haunting my brain, and I realized that rating was truly unjust. This movie is a 9 out of ten, INCHES away from a 10. If you have not seen it yet, PLEASE check it out, stop assuming it's all "Hitler is nice" hijinx. It absolutely isn't. Jojo Rabbit is an absolute masterpiece and a beautiful and artistic view on a genre that seemed to be nearly played out, but this film revitalized the genre with a fresh, creative new stance that will make you laugh, cry, and change your view on cinema as a whole. I know it did for me.