'Jojo Rabbit': Taika Waititi's "Not-All-Nazis" Satire Is Naively Idealistic [TIFF Review]

Taika Waititi’s self-proclaimed “anti-hate satire” “Jojo Rabbit” exists in service of a single idea, a notion so desperately idealistic that it lands somewhere between naïveté and disingenuousness. The film takes place during the waning months of the Second World War, in the German hometown of the sensitive, creative boy, Jojo (Roman Griffin Davis). Despite his timid nature, he’s an enthusiastic member of the Deutsches Jungvolk, the youngest sector of the Hitler Youth. He talks a big game about rounding up those nasty Jews for his hero Hitler (who also appears to him as a supportive imaginary friend, played by Waititi pulling double duty), but can’t bring himself to snap the neck of the rabbit that gives him his derogatory nickname and the film its title. He does not have the soul of a true Nazi, and by the time the film concludes with a goofy dance set to a German cover of David Bowie’s “Heroes,” he’ll have realized as much himself. He will renounce his fascistic ways, embrace the Jewish girl (Thomasin Mckenzie) hiding out in his attic, and turn to the light.

Jojo serves as a living illustration of a concept increasingly popular in liberal American politics, and increasingly difficult to believe: that a number of the people now identifying themselves as Nazis in the year 2019 are merely misguided, swept up in sentiment, and as such, salvageable. Waititi concedes that a good percentage of Nazis really do hold hate in their heart, but maintains that at least some of them aren’t beyond reach. If we’re willing to extend compassion and patience to the people that want to kill us, they might just come to their senses. Perhaps this may be true of impressionable children, but the film also feels the need to redeem Jojo’s commanding officer Captain Klenzendorf (Sam Rockwell), confirming that its principle should apply to adults as well. This is a sweet sentiment to believe, surely a comforting thought to right-thinking audience members wishing beyond hope that America will just snap out of it, but I cannot bring myself to subscribe to this viewpoint. We’ve all seen too much to buy it.

Waititi’s of-the-moment commentary clearly submits itself as The Film We Need Right Now — the deafening cheers at the Toronto International Film Festival in response to the line “fuck off, Hitler!” spoke volumes — when in actuality it’s the last thing the present needs. Aside from the brave few actually taking up arms against undesirable forces through formally organized Anti-Fascist groups, there’s no shortage of empathy being extended to the amateur goose-steppers idolizing Donald Trump by the saner citizens of the United States. Countless reporters have sojourned to the heartland to kibbutz with far-right types, willing to give them every benefit of the doubt that the people making them blue in the face with anti-immigrant sentiment are just rattled because of economic anxiety. They only think they support abject and horrific policies, goes the reasoning, when in actuality, they just need a nudge in the nobler direction.

Perhaps Waitit’s tenderheartedness would be commendable if it existed in some kind of vacuum beyond the real world, and yet that’s right where he insistently situates the targets of his critiques. He champions softness in all of its forms, leaving young Jojo with the lesson that his meek side actually makes him strong. Meanwhile, largely in the background aside from one horror-of-war montage making frightfully real what Jojo had theretofore only imagined, the global conflict is actually ended by people taking decisive, merciless action. Some of the sweetness comes off as downright manipulative, as in the shot that tilts from a baldly symbolic CGI butterfly up to the most horrifying sight Jojo can possibly imagine.

Waititi’s deadpan-heavy script and buddy-buddy turn as Hitler may be funny enough, and Scarlett Johansson turns in her best work in who-knows-how-long as Jojo’s mother, and external conscience. But when the film defines itself as an explicitly moral work, that much feels beside the point. What Waititi really wants is for everyone to get along and play nice; he portrays the American soldiers in a disparaging light, albeit less so than the Nazis, still frowning on their executions of Nazi war prisoners and gruff demeanor. They’re mean, and that’s the real problem, as represented by a battle scene in which chaos renders the Allied and Axis forces indistinguishable from one another. Waititi fails to realize that in both the ‘40s and the present, aggressive and unsparing opposition was and is our only saving grace. Note that this film bills itself not as anti-Nazi, but anti-hate; hate can and does have utility in times of great danger and upheaval, a regrettable but crucial truth.

Waititi’s plea for tolerance comes from a place of extreme privilege, betraying his status as a rich person far removed from the stakes of such discord. As a highly visible representative of the Jewish and Maori communities, he would appear to have skin in the game. But just ask anyone in actual danger whether they feel for the person holding the knife to their throat. The Nazis certainly won’t extend the same courtesy to we human beings. [D+]

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