When Taika Watiti dedicated his film to his mother at the Oscars for Best Adapted Screenplay, Rosie’s speech, which may be one of the most excellent monologues of the year came to mind, about what it is to be a woman: Move to Casablanca and take up lovers, break hearts, trust without fear, look a tiger in the eye. The second best speech of the year is from Elsa (played by Thomasin McKenzie) as she takes young Jojo by surprise in a headlock and whispers to him, “We are descended from those who killed giants and wrestled angels. Tell me more about who is the superior race.” It is good every. God. Damn. time. Which is to say, this film’s humor is indefatigable. I found Vox’s discussion running up to the Oscars to be one of the reasons why I ended up rewatching Jojo with Wife on the plane to see my family last week (she cried through the end, Rilke poem and all). In it, a lot of the critics talk about the way that the second act in some ways redeems the soul of the movie, makes it about more than snappy one-liners and a constant goosestep of edgy anti-semitism.
Watiti is in top form when he’s directing young talent as with Hunt for the Wilderpeople and his fingerprints are all over some of the multimedia jokes like Yoo Hoo Jew’s illustrated humor (probably my favorite jokes of the movie are in Steve Merchant’s perusal of this book). Two young robots hugging, the thing with the rabbit at Nazi camp, all of it felt like the purest distillation of Watiti.
Upon second viewing, it became clear to me that this was ScarJo’s best role in some time. I’ve been on a bit of a ScarJo nostalgia tour as of late: I watched Iron Man 2 on accident thinking it was Iron Man 3 on the plane back home last week, and remembered about an hour in that this was our first introduction to Black Widow however many decades ago, which broke my brain a little. I’d seen Marriage Story not too long ago and then this movie at the start of vacation. I know that she sometimes gets flak for doing her one-note femme fatale (I’ve been told her introduction in the first Avengers movie “with the chair” is actually the best introduction of Black Widow) and even when she does indie films, they can feel a little vapid (I really liked Under the Skin, I think it’s the last film I saw in theaters three times in a row) and Ghost in the Shell didn’t live up to anyone’s expectations, but she’s firing on all cylinders in this movie. Her performance of her husband at dinner is full of pathos and vim and charm, her devil-may-care panache when addressing her son Jojo is side-acheingly funny. Her constant under-the-radar irony gives off the feel of a mother who has spent much too long cooped up in a big house with a only a ten year old Hitler Youth for company.
Watiti got the recognition he deserved for putting this movie together. Considering his background, it felt like an important film for consideration, deep into the first term of the Trump presidency.
