Jojo Rabbit

Director: Taika Waititi
Starring: Roman Griffin Davis, Thomasin McKenzie, Taika Waititi, Rebel Wilson, Stephen Merchant, Alfie Allen, Sam Rockwell, Scarlett Johansson, Archie Yates
Running Time: 108 min.
Rating: PG-13

★★★ ½ (out of ★★★★)

You can almost feel audiences and critics collectively cringe whenever a comedic film is released that tackles anything related to Hitler, World War II or the Holocaust. And understandably so, as these aren't exactly topics brimming with cinematic possibilities for parody and satire. It could also be the reason we've seen so few of them, with most confirming those fears in the worst possible way. It's one thing to fall flat on your face, but it's another entirely to miss the mark while managing to offend everyone in the process. And lately, doing that seems easier than ever. It took all of thirty seconds into Taika Waititi's Jojo Rabbit to realize it would be different, and maybe even a shorter time for me to know I'd love it.

The opening scene so perfectly lays the groundwork for what's to come, taking a tone and approach that immediately disarms the potential viciousness of the material without defanging it, letting us know we're in good hands. And how could we not be when sais scene involves a little boy getting some motivational coaching from his idiotic imaginary friend, Adolf, before segueing into an opening credit sequence set to the German version of the Beatles' "I Want To Hold Your Hand."

Accomplishing even more than being awkwardly hilarious in the face of a seriously shameful piece of history, the film somehow effectively conveys a genuinely touching and light-hearted tale about friendship and tolerance in the face of pure evil. That it doesn't run from nor make light of these weighty issues in delivering this uniquely touching coming-of-age tale is what makes the end result so memorable.

Ten-year-old Johannes "Jojo" Betzler (Roman Griffin Davis) lives with his mother, Rosie (Scarlett Johansson) in Nazi Germany during World War II. With his father serving abroad and his older sister having passed away from influenza, Jojo regularly coverses with an imaginary version of Adolf Hitler (Waititi), who provides him with encouragement and support, but mostly acts like a buffoon most of the time. But much to Adolf's pleasure, Jojo and his best friend, Yorki (Archie Yates) enroll in and attend the "Deutsches Jungvolk," a training camp for aspiring Nazi youths run by the one-eyed Captain Klenzendorf (Sam Rockwell) and his no-nonsense instructor, Fräulein Rahm (Rebel Wilson).

After an unfortunate accident involving a hand grenade leaves Jojo badly injured with a limp and facial scarring, he's bedridden, aside from getting out to spread Nazi propoganda pamphlets around town. But while home, he makes a shocking discovery upstairs, finding a Jewish classmate of her late sister's, Elsa Koor (Thomasin McKenzie), hiding out. Jojo immediately threatens to turn her over to the Gestapo, until she warns him that his mother could be killed for hiding her. Frustrated, he then demands that she spill her "Jew Secrets," which he plans on compiling in a book to give Klenzendorf. With the war raging on, secretly housing a Jew becomes a major safety risk for Jojo and his mom, even as he starts to look beyond who he heard Elsa should be is to form a genuine friendship with their new houseguest, challenging every belief he thought hw had. 

Of the many obstacles the script (based upon Christine Leunens' bestselling novel, Caging Skies) would have in making it to the screen, you'd figure a big one would be getting audiences on the side of a ten-year-old, Hitler-worshipping aspiring Nazi. The young protagonist has to be presented and performed just right for all of this to work, and luckily, Roman Griffin Davis brings just the right mix of bewildered innocence and comedic flare to JoJo, playing him not unlike any other kid who clinges onto and absorbs whatever is put in front of him.

Growing up in Nazi Germany, it's essentially been drilled into JoJo's brain that the sun rises and sets on his hero Hitler, without ever a pause to consider why. The arrival of Elsa into his life gives him that pause, even as he initially has trouble recognizing it. And being ten, he can't be expected to know otherwise until shown, despite having a really positive role model in his feisty, free-spirited mother, Rosie. But at this point, under such an oppressive regime, there's only so much she can do to instill in him the diffrences between right and wrong without facing serious consequences. But hiding this Jewish girl in the house accomplishes that, even as she hopes Jojo won't discover it.

It might be possible to come up with a performance in Scarlett Johansson's career you feel is "better" than the work she does here as Rosie, but good luck naming one that leaves as much of an impact in as short a time. It's very much a supporting role, but she exhibits a comic timing and playfulness we're not accostomed to while still remaining completely in line with the darker edges of the material. And it's testament to how much she brings that when she eventually leaves the screen, her presence doesn't.

It's really the relationship between Jojo and his unexpected houseguest Elsa that gives the film its firepower, with the boy at first intimidated and even afraid of the older girl, if only on the basis of the awful things he's been taught about Jews. And she happily decides to play into it and mess with him a little until he's massively confused by the idea that she may not be so bad after all, flipping his previously limited worldview upside down.

When forced to see Elsa as an actual person rather than a label, Jojo likes her and feels obligated to protect her, leading to the film's most suspenseful scene, when the Gestapo, led by Captain Deertz (Stephen Mercahnt) arrive at the house, questioning Elsa's identity. It's moments like this where we're reminded just how serious this is and how high the stakes, with Thomasin McKenzie's performance during this extended sequence brilliant in how she must somehow create the illusion of maintaining composure while very subtly appearing ready to crack out from unimaginable dread and fear.

The narrative does take a turn, but other than to say we all know the outcome of the war and its ramifications, to give way how profoundly it impacts each of the characters is spoiling too much. But how Waititi's script manages to maintain its wicked sense of humor during the most dire of cirmcumstances continues to seep through even the most minor of details. Upending expectations mid-way through in such a way that it almost feels like a surrealistic fantasy, the story brings a whole new meaning to the notion of being "on the right side of history."

As with any art dealing with this subject, Jojo Rabbit still won't be for all tastes, but it probably comes closest to appealing to the mainstream that any movie broaching this controversial topic has. It's easy to understand its popularity, but the real thrill could be in putting someone with no preconceived notions in front of it and watching them gasp at amazement at what Waititi manages to pull off in the face of seemingly insurmountable material. 

Parasite

Director: Bong Joon-Ho
Starring: Song Kang-ho, Choi Woo-shik, Park So-dam, Jang Hye-jin, Lee Sun-kyun, Cho Yeo-jeong, Jung Ji-so, Jung Hyeon-jun, Lee Jung-eun, Park Myung-hoon, Park Geun-rok, Park Seo-joon
Runing Time: 132 min.
Rating: R

★★★★ (out of ★★★★)

If ever a film stood as the ultimate warning against the dangers of job recommendations, it's Parasite. A seemingly qualified candidate is hired, only to turn around and recommend their friend or relative, who in turn hears about another open position that someone they know would be perfect for. So on and so forth. Before long, an entire company, or in this case, an actual household, is overrun by a group of people who are all directly related in some way. Just replace the word "qualified" with "scammer" and you have a vague plot description of the first foreign film to win the Best Picture Oscar. And yet there's so much more, as an innocuous proposition evolves into a massive morality play unfolding over the course of two hours with darkly hilarious thrills and suspense, before making a detour into pure terror for its final act.

Acclaimed South Korean writer/director Bong Joon-ho juggles numerous balls in the air, as hardly a minute passes where you don't at least consider that the whole picture could just collapse under the weight of its lofty ambitions. But it never does, continuing to gather steam as it rolls, adding more outlandish and exciting wrinkles to what feels like an international answer to moviegoers complaints that there are no original stories anymore.There's only one Parasite, and the longer you examine all its themes and implications, the harder it becomes to name another film that even slightly resembles it, domestically or abroad.

Its title would seem to say it all, but in this story of a poor family infiltrating the household of a wealthy one by posing as unrelated, but marginally qualified applicants, we're frequently challenged to examine the nature that parasitic relationship that develops by questioning who's really leeching off whom. Complicating matters is that both families seem to exist in a shade of grey, each with as many unlikable qualities as endearing ones. Clueless in some ways while perceptive in others. We laugh with and at both of them until it's evident that the entertainment each provides will have come to a screeching halt, and we're forced to take bets on who will survive. And more importantly, what the definition of survival even is in this scenario.

The Kim family live in a small basement apartment trying to make ends meet with their low-paying jobs as pizza box folders. But when son Ki-Woo (Choi Woo-shik) receives an offer from friend and  departing university student Min-hyuk (Park Seo-joon) to take over his job as English tutor to Da-hye (Jung Ji-so), the teen daughter of the wealthy Park family, Posing as a college student, Ki-Woo immediately impresses the smitten girl and her nervous, overprotective mother, Mrs. Park (Cho Yeo-jeong), who nicknames him "Kevin."

Ki-Woo's master plan is now set in motion, using the new position to help his family infiltrate the Park residence, with each recommending the other for various job openings within the house, all of which are created by their own manipulations. His sister Ki-Jung (Park So-dam) poses an "art therapist" to the Park's hyperactive young son, Da-song (Jung Hyeon-jun), and after a couple of really clever ruses, Father Ki-taek (Song Kang-ho) and mother Chung-sook (Jang Hye-jin) get themselves hired to replace Mr. Park's (Lee Sun-kyun) chauffeur and longtime housekeeper, Moon-gwang (Lee Jung-eun), respectively.

With little to no experience, they've found a way to assume these identities and weasel their way into the luxurious, Architectural Digest-ready home of the Park's. But it isn't as if this wealthy, but naive family isn't getting Kim's services in return, as the invaders will soon discover just how far they can take this ruse before being found out, and the potentially dangerous consequences for all involved. 

Once the offer is presented to Ki-Woo, it's off to the races and rarely does the film slow down for a beat to even process the wildness about to unfold, so much of its hilarity stemming from the Kim family's dedication to carrying this invasion out with exacting perfection. It's surprise just how cleverly they manage to displace the Park's live-in employees, but the glee they take upon conning these insulated rich folks.

From the second we meet the loud, scheming, abrasive Kims in their basement-dwelling apartment with a view of pedestrians peeing on the sidewalk, they're clearly established as a certain class of family that could only dream of attaining the lifestyle their eventual employers have. It's not necessarily because they're lazy or dumb, as all of them go many steps past merely "playing" the part required for them to gain the Park's acceptance and approval.

That all the Kims actually do the work and are pretty good at it serves to only complicate and challenge viewer expectations. But ultimately they prove incapable of curbing their more leacherous tendencies, arrogantly sinking too far into their own game to see all the potential roadblocks, one of which will eventually undo them. Horrible, but delightfully entertaining, it becomes harder to root against the Kims the more entertaining we realize they are, particularly during a memorable sequence involving the housekeeper's peach allergy. Everything they do is basically awful, but Bong Jonn-ho is so smart that he muddies the waters by making the Park's, if not equally as unlikable, still deeply flawed.

As the naive Mrs. Park, Cho Yeo-jeong gives one of the film's best and most broadly comedic supporting performances as a worrisome young mother too isolated in her enclave of wealth to question anything, or even know that you can. But at least she's involved, which is more than can be said for Mr. Park, so entrenched in his tech company that the quickest solution to any family problem is to throw money at it. Neither are bad people nor horrible parents, just incredibly clueless ones, making them sitting ducks for the Kims, who reside in greyer moral territory as characters.

They're all opportunists, but it's easy to believe Ki-Woo would have somehow found a way into this house with or without his friend's offer. Initially, he's extemely likable, but it's that likability he uses to his and his family's advantage, winning over Mrs. Park as a tutor and her daughter as his girlfriend, whom he steals right from under his friend. A case can be made that of all the Kims, he's the worst, so major credit to Choi Woo-shik for making him appear to be exactly the opposite.

As his sister, Park So-Dam's performance as Ki-Jung (a.k.a art teacher "Jessica") is captivating in the sense that she's the family member, as is commented, who most seems most at home in this rich world. And maybe the only one of the Kims you could imagine believably having that life under different circumstances. It begs the question of why she doesn't, or any of them don't, which is something the movie never runs from, nor pretends to necessarily have the answer to.

As their parents, Song Kang-ho and Jang Hye-jin first seem as if they're being dragged along for the ride, until the layers of their performances within performances start to unspool, particularly the former's as Ki-taek, whose goofy behavior masks a subtly turbulant relationship with his employer based on class and perception. It's reminder that no matter how well the Kims may seem to assimilate into this lifestyle, they'll never be able to shake the literal and figurative stench of their poverty. And the Parks, even unconciously, can't resist reminding them.

Bong Joon-ho's ultimate trick is the film's third-act pivot from extremely dark suburban comedy into pure horror, but its craftmanship comes from a perfectly calibrated tonal shift, with all the seeds previously planted to confirm that was the inevitable destination. It's almost become a cliche to say that a certain setting is a character, but it's rarely been truer than here as an almost agresssively modern house that's all visual artiface--beautifully sterile and open---reveals its hidden depths and secrets, much like the characters sharing space within it.

The film's worldwide appeal is evident in just the strong foothold it's had in the U.S., winning its top cinematic prize and having rabid mainstream audiences lining up to see a subtitled South Korean picture. Much of that stems from so effectively hitting on a universal theme not entirely unfamiliar to each demographic in every nation across the board: class warfare. It's hard to watch without at least considering how American cinema has treated suburban privilege in films like American Beauty and The Ice Storm, or even a tv series such as Mad Men. Most exist in a vacccum unto their own, focusing on how badly the well-off have it, rather than exploring the viewpoint of those looking in from the outside. Parasite is all about how little regard the Kims would have for the characters in them, despite desiring everything their lives entail.