Film Review - Jojo Rabbit (12A)

You're not a Nazi, Jojo. You're a ten-year-old kid who likes dressing up in a funny uniform and wants to be part of a club.

Adolf Hitler and Nazism were first lampooned on screen in Charles Chaplin's 1940 comedy The Great Dictator. Nearly three decades later, the world having grasped the true horrors of the Nazi regime, Mel Brooks went there again in The Producers, then ingulged in similar mockery via 1984's To Be Or Not To Be. Ridiculing the Fuhrer and his intended Master Race, in other words, is nothing new. Jojo Rabbit, Taika Waititi's swipe at all things Third Reich, is no doubt in response to a depressing global resurgence of far-right sentiment and can't be faulted in its intentions. Whether it fully succeeds as a film is a different question.

Inspired by Christine Leunens' 2008 novel Caging Skies, the film centres on Johannes (Jojo), a young German lad so fixated on succeeding in the Hitler Youth juniors that his imaginary friend is the organisation's bizarrely-moustached founder himself (played with relish by Waititi). However Jojo's situation is compromised when he discovers that his mother is hiding Elsa, a Jewish teenager, in the family home. With his personal inner Hitler providing dubious advice (a kind of Fascist Jiminy Cricket), Jojo is torn between what his Jungvolk ideology is telling him and a slowly growing connection with Elsa.

A film like Jojo Rabbit works (or doesn't) on how well its disparate elements blend together. This is in essense a wacky satire on totalitarianism with brash, primary colour design throughout, but it also embraces sentimentality and tragedy. Waititi makes for a zany tyrant - all furious mugging and ungainly physicality - but that zaniness spills too far into the film's real world. Moments of Monty Python-level surrealism - like an insane one inside the Hitler Youth HQ - tore me out of the film's world with no easy way back in, so that other starkly serious revelations didn't work like they should have. It also needs saying that a great-sounding comic conceit - like a young lad's lunatic version of Hitler - can wear thin very quickly. While it's initially amusing to see Waititi lolloping in slo-mo through with woods on a Yungvolk training exercise, the effect simply doesn't sustain. Thank goodness then that the comedy-Fuhrer is used sparingly.

Elsewhere the comi-serious balance is struck to better effect. Sam Rockwell (wouldn't you know) is nicely understated in his performance as the war-and-world-weary Klenzendorf, visibly sagging under his demotion to Captain of the Yungvolk. Scarlett Johansson has both warmth and a colourful splash of eccentricity as the mother trying to redeem Jojo discreetly from the clutches of a toxic ideology. And Stephen Merchant injects a surprising element of menace into the broad comedy of Gestapo Captain Deertz. But supplying most of the film's biggest laughs is young Archie Yates as Jojo's earnest friend Yorki. Every unwittingly funny declaration is made with deadpan of a comedy natural, so expect to see him again - soon.

Then there's the heart of the drama, falling squarely on the shoulders of Roman Griffith Davis - another screen novice - as Jojo. He carries the responsibility commendably well. There's innate likeability, yet he also conveys the chill of youthful fanaticism in his early encounters with the secret house-guest. Thomasin McKenzie as Elsa provides a fine counterpoint, capitalising on all the promise she showed in 2018's survivalist drama Leave No Trace. Everything she does exudes realness and the result is an affecting rapport between our young Hitler-fan and the stranger he's been taught to fear.

 

The film which sprang to mind most readily when watching Jojo Rabbit was 1997's Life is Beautiful, the Chaplin-esque romantic comedy that morphed disconcertingly into a Holocaust drama. Both it and Jojo courted the controversy of treating this darkest of subject-matter with levity. Setting that ideological issue aside, however, it's the 1997 movie that works better - largely because its lead performance (remember Roberto Benigni?) knits the contrasting aspects successfully together. Here those aspects clash too much for Jojo's story to be fully satisfying. Some of it is touching, some of it funny - but it doesn't blend. Waikiki's satirical aims are noble, but ultimately the movie doesn't achieve the sum of its frequently admirable parts.

Gut Reaction: Laughter - yes, misty eyes - yes. But also that sense of not laughing enough, or being shocked enough, or being moved quite enough. Although maybe that's just me.

Memorable Moment: A foreshadowed shock I should have seen coming - but didn't.

Ed's Verdict: 7/10. In an era where all kinds of race-hatred are reasserting themselves, Jojo is well-intentioned and welcome. If it doesn't hold together the way I wanted, it's got lots of lovely individual bits.

Film Review - Fighting With My Family (12A)

Don't worry about being the next me. Be the first you.

 

First up - you don't need to be a fan of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) to enjoy Fighting With My Family, any more than you need to be a boxing nut to enjoy Rocky. Wrestling aficionados might get an extra buzz from the film (the loudly whooping pair in front of me certainly did), but this is a great cinematic ride whatever your sporting preferences or lack thereof. If you like a funny and heartfelt family drama or a well-told underdog story, this is still for you. Very much so.

Inspired by a 2012 documentary of the same name, the movie tells the story of the Knights - a wrestling family from Norwich, UK. Rough-diamond parents Ricky and Julia (Nick Frost and Lena Headey) have both found salvation in the sport and in each other, their grown-up children Saraya and Zak (Florence Pugh and Jack Lowden) throwing themselves into the ring with equivalent fervour. It's a family business complete with a rough-and-tumble entourage from their council estate and rowdily entertaining local wrestling bouts. Then the razzle-dazzle US verion arrives in the form of London tryouts for the WWE. Saraya and Jack audition as a brother-sister act, sights set on the training centre in Florida. But while the outcome spells potential glory for one of them, it also threatens to fracture the family as a whole.

Fighting With My Family is written and directed by Stephen Merchant, a fact which explains its comedy sensibilities, while keeping the depth of its drama a welcome surprise. (Merchant did co-write poignant coming-of-act tale Cemetery Junction with Ricky Gervais, so perhaps I should have seen the latter coming.) The establishing scenes with the Knights and their extended wrestling family are full of brash humour, much of it courtesy of a rough but lovable Frost; a scene where they introduce themselves to the 'posh' parents of Zak's girlfriend is a lol-worthy delight. But it's when Saraya and Zak have their X-Factor-style moment of crisis that the story really hits its stride. She must attempt a transformation amid her body-beautiful American rivals from small-town Goth-girl into WWE star Paige. He, on the other hand, faces a totally different, existential kind of challenge, as all his dreams recede. The decision to balance the stories is a crucial one, grounding the film in tough reality and providing it with both heart and guts.

Despite moments of hilarity, Merchant takes the wrestling world seriously and so does his cast. Pugh, so mesmerising in Lady Macbeth, is terrific casting as Saraya/Paige, internalising all the character's passion and self-doubt, but letting it burn in her eyes. She gives and takes serious punishment in the fight sequences too. Lowden (who's already proven himself in films as diverse as Dunkirk and Mary Queen of Scots) is equally impressive as Zak; his emotionally bruising character-arc is a stark counterpoint to Pugh's more physical one. Frost and Headey (Cersei Lannister herself) round off the warm and rumbustious family unit perfectly, looking like you've never seen either before.

Vince Vaughn puts in entertaining work as WWE trainer Hutch, basically a lite version of his Hacksaw Ridge drill sergeant, but with some added dimension courtesy of a sobering backstory. And popping up occasionally to sprinkle both wisdom and Hollywood star power on the proceedings is Dwayne Johnson as himself. A driving force behind the film's making, The Rock is smart enough to step back and let the other cast members do the heavy lifting (including at points of each other).

All involved here bring the 'fixed-not-fake' world of professional wrestling to vivid life - a bone-crunching form of show-business that has a theatrical appeal all its own. While maintaining its Rocky/Creed structure throughout, Fighting With My Family manages to be its own beast - subverting both plot- and character-expectations and never letting the WWE training scenes drown out the 'family' element. It's a film about finding your path, whether starry or humble, while not forgetting the influences that shaped you. Even with its occasionally earthy language (thanks Nick Frost), this is a family movie in every sense.

Gut Reaction: I'd expected to laugh and I did, but the degree to which I cared about these characters is what I remember most. 

Memorable Moment: Yultide sibling smackdown. 

Ed's Verdict: 8/10. Raucously funny at some points and stone-cold serious at others, Fighting With My Family is a movie that earns its feel-good moments. Full of both emotional and literal body-slams, it'll have you properly cheering by the end. 

Film Review - The Girl in the Spider's Web (15)

Are you not Lisbeth Salander, the righter of wrongs?

Full disclosure here - I've not seen any of the original Girl films starring Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth Salander. Nor have I seen David Fincher's remake of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo with Rooney Mara in the role. I haven't even got much knowledge of the late Stieg Larsson's original novels - hell, every reviewer has a few blind-spots, okay? Point is, I can't write as a fan here. I'm only talking about the movie in context of itself. And in those terms at least, it works passably well.

Claire Foy straps on Lisbeth's boots in The Girl in the Spider's Web, a film adapted from David Lagercrantz's continuation of Larsson's stories. The tatted Goth antiheroine is working as a computer hacker for hire, while carrying out acts of nighttime vigilantism on abusive men. (It's good to have a stimulating hobby.) Through her day job she meets Frans Balder (Stephen Merchant), a computer programmer who - Oppenheimer-style - has come to regret the weapons-related tech he created. He employs her to steal it back so that no government can put it to use, but Lisbeth's are not the only eyes on this potentially deadly prize. And the other party may have a link right back to a dark secret from her childhood.

Directed by Fede Alvarez this new Girl is a handsomely made and tightly plotted espionage thriller with action overtones. Its colour palette is blue-grey, emphasising both the grimmer aspects of human nature examined in the story and Sweden's chilly beauty. (Lisbeth's main antagonist stands out on the bleak and sweeping landscapes in primary red.) The deliberate pace builds - accompanied by a rich, electronically-spiked orchestral score - to its sufficiently nail-biting crescendo. And all plot points - Swedish governmental manoeuvring, a US National Security agent's snooping, the investigations of Lisbeth's old journalist friend Mikael Blomqvist (Sverrir Gudnason) - knit together by the end. It's a point seriously in the movie's favour, following the catastrophe that was last year's The Snowman; solid storytelling, never less than engaging.

Foy has a good old stab at the lead character too, immersing herself in a role far flung from Elizabeth II (Brit TV's royal phenomenon The Crown) or stoic astronaut's wife Janet Armstrong (First Man). This woman has range. Her physicality and demeanour are both transformed as she commits to the taciturn complexities of Salander, not least in an early sequence where she proves her vigilante credentials beyond all doubt. It's not ultimately as visceral a performance as say that of Charlize Theron in Atomic Blonde - something betrayed in a few irritatingly choppy hand-to-hand combat sequences - but this is still an impressive transformation, helping sell the story's more outlandish aspects.

Still, as confessed, I'm not a Salander aficionado, which no doubt explains the more lukewarm reaction to the film by Larssen enthusiasts. This sleek film doesn't, they assure me, match up to the original Swedish-language trilogy, nor does it plumb those movies' pitch darkness, despite the underlying theme of abuse and its terrible consequences. This much I will question - the wisdom of creating all-new backstory for a well-established protagonist. It's always problematic tinkering with the continuity of a long-running franchise - just look at Jason Bourne. Or the new Fantastic Beasts. Don't mess too much with the earlier films' legacy, that seems to be the lesson.

Spider's Web is full of comfortably familiar spy tropes and political double-cross, while the attempts of Lisbeth and her nemesis to out-manoeuvre each other play like a deadly chess match. As to its worth in terms of the Larsson legacy, others must be the judge of that. For me it was a smart and well-executed ride, and a perfectly engrossing stand-alone adventure that didn't seem to compromise its enigmatic lead. Maybe I'll reevaluate once I've seen the originals... 

Gut Reaction: A sufficiently high level of enjoyment for me to think 'I'm really enjoying this'. Although some of the more twisted elements did chill me.

Where Are the Women?: Female protagonist and antagonist playing that scary game of metaphorical chess. Very 2018.

Ed's Verdict: 7/10. Whether or not this is classic Girl, it's a solid genre pic and a decent night out. And that's all I have to say.