Some of the jokes land, and Thomasin McKenzie is fantastic, but beyond that Jojo is a tonally disjointed movie with nothing interesting to say

Rating: 5/10 (5 February 2020)

While an odd comparison due to the contexts of subject matter, Jojo Rabbit feels like my Vice of 2019, but with better humor and even less to say. It is entertaining enough and has a couple solid performances, but doesn't feel like it has a real point. It's meant to be an anti-hate satire, and Hitler as an imaginary friend was a clever way of getting at that, but the absurd unrealism of all the German training/Reich scenes deadened the seriousness of the Nazi beliefs and the emotional impact of most scenes. It was obvious in poking fun at how ridiculous and over-the-top Nazi beliefs were by showing them through the eyes of a blind faith 10 year old, but it really didn't have anywhere to go from there. I would've liked to see more of how they get people like Jojo to buy their propaganda and beliefs, but instead we just have to accept that that's who he is at the start, which makes his turn to accept Elsa not emotionally impactful. The comedy is inconsistent - it has some really good moments (I loved the circumcision joke), but also a bunch that didn't land. The script is fairly spotty overall, particularly in the relationship between Jojo and his mother. There was a strange distance between them that is never explained, almost as though she's a step mother. After it gets the satirical premise out there in the first act, it stumbles through most of the second and third acts and ends pretty pointlessly.
It's not all bad though, and that's primarily thanks to Thomasin McKenzie. Between her unbelievable performance in Leave No Trace last year and now a great turn here, she's quickly become one of my favorite actresses. The only emotional resonance the movie has is in her fearful disposition to the world outside and her developing bond with Jojo, and honestly the humor that lands best is her knowing teasing of Jojo. I like Rockwell as always and liked his final scene, but there wasn't quite enough leading up to it to give it the full emotional force it could've had. It is an absolute abomination that Scarlett Johansson got a supporting actress nomination - she doesn't do much here and her performance is nothing at all compared to McKenzie's. I will be infuriated if this movie wins adapted screenplay over Little Women, as is likely, because it was a script that did a poor job with its characters aside from Elsa, had no arc or anything to think about, and even the comedy that I thought would be its hallmark was spotty. It's not quite a bad movie, but it's shallow, providing nothing interesting to mull over, and falls on its face balancing absurdist humor with emotional or serious war scenes.