Enid Blyton's Br'er Rabbit was named Jojo Lapin (literally Jojo Rabbit) in French and so I've always thought the film had to be about the creation of the rabbit or the kid in the poster having a bunny as an imaginary friend, like a Harvey story. In fact the rabbit that earns the eponymous nickname serves one purpose: establishing the little antihero as a good person who wouldn't snap a rabbit's neck. Fine.

Now, how about the film? The Oscar-darling? The Original Screenplay winner?

Well, to fully appreciate the originality of Taika Waitit's "JoJo Rabbit", one must be unaware of movies such as "Life is Beautiful", "Cabaret", "Hope and Glory", "To Be or Not To Be", both the Ernst Lubistch and Mel Brooks' version, Mel Brooks' "The Producers", "The Tin Drum", a French gem named "Gramps is in the Resistance" and Gérard Jugnot's "Monsieur Batignole" and almost every Wes Anderson movie. In a way, it's very fitting that "Jojo Rabbit" is set in WW2 Germany (or Austria) because it has the feel of the ersatz.

There's nothing that feels remotely natural about the adaptation of "Caging Skies" by Christine Leunens , the more it tries, the more it gets caged by the very sky of its stylistic delusions. The film feels less like the work of an artist than a fantasy over making his own (insert name of a famous Holocaust film). It all comes down to the very best creation of Waititi is his own embodiment of the evil H. As a little boy's imaginary friend, like the Bogart character for Woody Allen in "Play it Again, Sam".

And (over)playing him, Waititi channels every single comical impersonation of the dictator, from Chaplin to 40s propaganda cartoon, reaching peaks of comedic hysteria in the beginning when he keeps frenetically stamping asking JoJo to heil him in a clever mix of grotesque and horror. If there had to be one performance worthy of an Oscar nomination, it would be that one. The problem is that Waikiki never tries to elevate the material beyond the weird gallery of loonies and goofy-looking Carnival Nutzis. Sam Rockwell as the Captain a youth camp is obviously a faux evil goosestepping toward his redemption and the instructor charged of the German Girls (Rebel Wilson) is obviously meant to ridicule the myth of the Aryan beauty and family pillar.

Scarlett Johannsen is good as JoJo's mother Rosie but brings nothing that justifies her Oscar-nomination. It was the year of Jennifer Lopez' snub and now I confirm: she was better than Johannsen. As for the cute Roman Griffin Davis, I enjoyed his performance as Johannes "Jojo" Betzler to the degree that I could forget how predictable his character's arc was too. At first, he's an aficionado of the Swastico, a devotee of the party, who's with Hit. Like a Yankee fan meeting Mickey Mantle. We know the kid will change.

And how he changes is nothing you haven't seen before. Unmbeknowst to him, his mother hides a young 'Anne Frank'-like girl in their home, Elsa (Thomain McKenzie) and the film is basically about a young boy learning that the community aren't the monsters he was taught about and well, it's a little disappointing that the whole narrative arc of the film depends on the change of mind of little JoJo. And all it takes is the Jewish girl to mock the archeypes by exaggerating them as if the underlying message was that "you hate what you don't know". Are you sure?

The kid wasn't ignorant, just brainwashed and even the most hardcore nutzis knew Jews didn't grow thorns . So the very premise is compromised by common sense and reality and Elsa could simply tell the truth to JoJo who was never exposed as a kid capable to cause her downfall. And even if it was the case, the closet to barbarity displayed in the family is the rabbit bit. How can you sense the danger when the evil ideology is only shown as the "it" thing, the trend, with the opening credits making a parallel between the Triumph of the Will and the Beatlemania?

Of course, the dictator appears sporadically and as defeat starts looming over, he's getting less and less likable but it's obvious from the start that the film belongs to the second category of WW2 Germany films: the non-threatening ones. It's closer to Mel Brooks and Wes Anderson than Benigni and when it becomes dark and serious for a moment (even Brooks had do to so) the drama doesn't work. And even if it did, it showed that JoJo's evolution comes from some things he witnessed, not because Elsa told her story, the real one. Waititi didn't want to spoil the "Moonrise Kingdom" feel of the little puppy romance.

While the two kids have a fair chemistry, the relationship isn't better than the mother-and-daughter interaction. In "Tin Drum", the kid made an outcast of himself by being obnoxious and hateful and short, JoJo couldn't be unlikable even if he wanted too. I wonder if Archie Yokes who played his fat friend Yorki could have made a more interesting outcast by not being so cute. As for Elsa, never has her acting suggested that she's hiding from the Nazis but rather fleeing from abusive parents. In fact the threat is never overwhelming enough to have Elsa or Rosie tries to talk some sense to the kid, it's not like he was a five-year old or that he was in danger, imagination is good but this is life and death.

And so maybe the more disturbing truth about the film is that it underestimates a child's intelligence. Wasn't JoJo able to understand what's going on? Maybe Waititi wanted to keep it lighthearted and fun, but there's a limit to how much he could let character clown around and milk the "war though children's eyes' formula without getting it repetitive, redundant... and déjà vu.