THENEWYORKER, OCTOBER 28, 2019 89
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Richard Brody blogs about movies.as a kind of Triton, encrusted with bar-
nacles and shells. But Pattinson, who is
at his best when smooth and withdrawn,
in films like “Cosmopolis” (2012), is en-
couraged here to stretch his wings, be-
coming a thing of rage, and his charac-
ter starts to disgorge a load of backstory.
Is that really what the fable requires?
There were times, to my shame, when
I struggled to tamp down a laugh, and
something about Eggers’s tale feels
cooked up and overwrought; at one
telling point, Ephraim accuses Thomas
of sounding “like a goddam parody.”
Whereas the dread of devilry, in “The
Witch,” was rooted deep in the faith of
the early settlers, “The Lighthouse” has
to create its own mythology as it goes
along. For all its savage wonders, it lies
beyond belief.
T
he funniest film of 2015 was “What
We Do in the Shadows.” And the
funniest film of 2017 was “Thor: Rag-
narok.” That, indeed, was slightly too
funny for some Marvel addicts, who
suspected (quite correctly) that it was
making fun of the entire Marvel proj-
ect. All of which, needless to say, made
the film funnier still.
Both movies were made by Taika
Waititi, who now returns with “Jojo
Rabbit.” He also wrote the screenplay
and, for good measure, takes a support-
ing role, as Adolf. Yes, that Adolf,
complete with the mini-mustache and
the dark diagonal of hair. He pops up
throughout the story, visible only to us
and to Jojo (Roman Griffin Davis), a
ten-year-old German boy. Everyone de-
serves an imaginary pal, and Jojo—a de-
cent but impressionable lad—has Adolf,
whose encouragement is sorely needed.
Jojo is, by his own admission, “massively
into swastikas,” and it took him three
weeks to get over the fact that his grand-
father wasn’t blond, yet he worries that
he might not be up to the job. Some-
times it’s hard to be a Nazi.
We are in the final months, and then
the dying days, of the Second World
War. So dire is the German predicament
that the young and the elderly are pressed
into service. Jojo and his friend Yorki
(Archie Yates)—round face, round spec-
tacles, and an all-round delight—go off
to training camp, where they are taught
not only combat skills but the rudiments
of racial hatred. Sam Rockwell plays the
resentful officer in charge, with Rebel
Wilson as his hearty sidekick. “Now get
your things together, kids, it’s time to
burn some books!” she says.
It doesn’t take long to spot the angle
from which Waititi, who is half Maori
and half Jewish, has chosen to approach
his awkward theme. He wants to make
an upbeat “Downfall.” You can imagine
Mel Brooks, who dressed up and rapped
as Hitler in “To Be or Not to Be” (1983),
looking on in approbation as this new
Adolf greets Jojo with a merry cry of
“Heil me, man!” I half expected them
to exchange heil fives. Ridicule, the more
buffoonish the better, is a well-used tool
in the unpicking of Fascist ideology,
and Waititi cleaves to the Brooksian
principle: that which does not kill me
makes me ruder. Problems can arise,
though, when satirists feel compelled
to lay aside the weaponry of scorn and
tell a gentler tale—when Waititi, for
instance, comes to deal with Jojo’s ador-
ing mother, Rosie (Scarlett Johansson),
or with the Jewish girl named Elsa
(Thomasin McKenzie), to whom Rosiehas given refuge and who lives in a crawl
space at the top of the house.
Both actresses are on exemplary form.
Johansson seems livelier and more emo-
tionally pliable than most of her roles
allow her to be, and McKenzie fulfills
the promise of “Leave No Trace” (2018),
in which woods, not eaves, became her
hideaway. As Elsa, she barely smiles,
except in wry amusement at everything
that Jojo doesn’t know. Once he discov-
ers, to his confusion, that she lacks a
forked tongue and a tail, he quizzes her
about Jews. “We’re like you, but human,”
she replies. Adolf, of course, is freaked
out by this evidence of normality—even
superiority—in one whom he has sworn
to erase. “She’s like a female Jewish Jesse
Owens,” he exclaims.
And so this singular movie flicks back
and forth between its contradictory
moods. On the one hand, there is the
growth of love and understanding be-
tween Elsa and Jojo; on the other hand,
there is the defiance, or the near-desper-
ation, with which Waititi flies the ban-
ner of farce. How are we supposed to
laugh—can we still laugh—when we’ve
just seen corpses swinging from the gal-
lows in a town square? It’s no surprise
that the film should so often stumble
and trip, yet I would sooner watch it
again and sort through my mixed feel-
ings about it than revisit, say, the nullity
of “Joker.” There is genuine zest in the
unease of “Jojo Rabbit,” and it’s weirdly
convincing as a portrait of childhood
under surreal strain. As Adolf says to our
hero, summing up the lunacy of the times,
“You’re ten, Jojo. Start acting like it.”THE NEW YORKER IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK OF ADVANCE MAGAZINE PUBLISHERS INC. COPYRIGHT ©2019 CONDÉ NAST. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.
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