I know a man whose back is still scarred from his time in the Hitler Youth. And who knows we might soon have the Trump Youth. But you can always make jokes about it. JOJO RABBIT

When something really hurts, I mean physically hurts. Try telling a joke. Laughter makes pain go away, for a while. Humor helps you deal with the pain. 






You can read this review if you want. You need to see Jojo Rabbit. Maybe read this after you watch it. 

Oh, and if it actually happens. Heil Trump doesn't have the same ring to it. Maybe Steven Miller can come up with something. 

It’s springtime for Hitler and life is beautiful. At least it is for Johannes “Jojo” Betzler, a 10-year-old German boy who’s been thoroughly indoctrinated by Hitler Youth. That is, until he discovers that his mother is hiding a Jewish girl at home and, boom, his world turns upside down.

 That’s essentially what happens in “Caging Skies,” a 2008 novel by Christine Leunens that bears some resemblance in plot — but hardly any in tone — to Jojo Rabbit, the polarizing but potently funny film that New Zealand writer-director Taika Waititi has made of it. If you know this one-of-a-kind filmmaker’s work (see: Thor: Ragnarok, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, the vampire mockumentary What We Do in the Shadows), you know that humor is his preferred form of expression.

You’ll laugh, you’ll cry — sometimes at the same time. But love or hate Jojo Rabbit, it’s damn near impossible to shake. Injecting monkeyshines into Nazi horrors sure didn’t hurt Mel Brooks’ The Producers or, for that matter, Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds. And Roberto Benigni’s Life Is Beautiful won an Oscar despite using the Holocaust to press emotional buttons. At the Toronto Film Festival, where Jojo Rabbit premiered last month, the critical hand-wringing about the film’s uneasy mix of slapstick and sentiment did nothing to stop the movie from winning the coveted People’s Choice Award, often an Oscar harbinger (like last year’s Green Book). Our suggestion: Stick with Waititi. Give or take a few structural stumbles, he’s worth following anywhere.

 Waititi immediately distinguishes itself from the self-serious source material, establishing a farcical opening to the sounds of the Beatles singing a German cover of “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” while documentary footage rolls of National Socialists sieg-heiling. Jojo, played by Roman Griffin Davis in one of the best performances ever by a child actor, doesn’t merely subscribe to Hitler Youth; he thinks of the fuhrer as his friend, a surrogate daddy and imaginary buddy with whom he can share his feelings. And with Waititi, a Polynesian Jew who’s cast himself as Hitler, the leader of the Third Reich is mocked early and often.

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‘Jojo Rabbit’ Review: A Hit-or-Miss Hitler Comedy With a Heart
Love it or hate it, Taika Waititi’s singularly silly take on the WWII coming-of-age movie is damn near impossible to shake

By PETER TRAVERS