Whimsical but Honest, Colorful but Draining, Jojo is Both Wonderful and Terrible

Rating: 9/10 (28 January 2020)

Alternating between bitter poignance and flippant hilarity, Jojo Rabbit thrives as an emotional rollercoaster. Gravely serious situations are often cut with a well-timed, stress-melting laugh. Light moments of childish infatuation take a sudden swerve into existential turmoil. That's a hallmark of director Taika Waititi, who explored similarly polarizing contrasts in Hunt for the Wilderpeople, and, as it turns out, it's also the essence of childhood during wartime.
Here we spend time with a ten-year-old German boy (passionately interested in the fading Third Reich), his troubled but deeply caring mother, the comically inept Nazis left to supervise their small town, and the sarcastic Jewish girl secreted away in their attic. Largely due to circumstance, the kids deal with some very adult subjects, trying everything to convince their peers to take them seriously. It doesn't work, of course, and that leads to some of the richest comedy, so they redouble their efforts. It's only in the very last scene, with the shadow of impending invasion finally past, that the specter of assumed adulthood is released and we finally catch a glimpse of these children acting their age. I wasn't sure the film would actually come together until that perfect moment, but what rich rewards for a thoroughly up-and-down journey.
Whimsical but honest, colorful but draining, it's both wonderful and terrible, often at the same time. My spine was shivering as it cut to the credits.