Welcome back to Movie Recaps. Today I will show you a 2019 comedy-drama film, titled Jojo Rabbit.
Spoilers ahead! Watch out and take care. The fictional city of Falkenheim, where Nazy
Germany is starting to collapse, is the home of Jojo, a ten-year-old boy who keeps Adolf Hitler
as his imaginary friend but can't tie his own shoes. He's a true nationalist and a fanatic,
indoctrinated with Nazi ideals and eager to help his country during the war,
and that's why he's joining Jungvolk, the junior section of the Hitler Youth,
with his friend Yorki. They're spending the whole weekend at a camp run by Captain Klenzendorf,
his second-in-command Freddy Finkel, and Fräulein Rahm, who is in charge of the League of German
Girls. They're giving kid-sized uniforms and a special dagger before they're taken to experience
a variety of activities like grenade-throwing, trench-digging, map reading, and gas defense,
among others. Or at least, the boys are. The girls are taught to dress wounds, make beds, and
how to get pregnant. Jojo does well in activities like describing Jewish people and burning books,
but when it comes to hand-to-hand combat, he gets scared and sneaks away,
gaining the attention of the older boys. When the time comes for the boy to learn how to kill,
these teenagers see how hesitant Jojo is and put a rabbit in his arms, asking him to demonstrate.
Jojo swears he isn't scared, but he still can't bring himself to do it, so he tries to let the
rabbit go. However, the teen boy grabs it before it can run away and kills it himself, proceeding
then to make fun of Jojo for his failure. Since he's scared like a little rabbit, they start
calling him "Jojo Rabbit", which upsets him and causes him to run to the woods. While he sits on
a tree root crying, imaginary Hitler shows up and tells him rabbits are actually pretty brave - they
go out in the wild every day to get their carrots and they gotta be sneaky not to get caught.
Encouraged to be a mighty rabbit, Jojo runs back to camp, where Klenzendorf is teaching the kids to
throw grenades under his supervision. Jojo passes by him, steals the grenade he has in his hand,
and continues to run into the woods, where he throws the grenade so badly that it bounces off a
tree and lands on his feet, exploding on his face. Jojo falls unconscious, but he has some blurry
memories of people getting him to the hospital and his mother Rosie Betzler visiting him. He wakes up
some days later in his room, and the first thing he notices when he gets out of bed is the limp on
his leg, the second being the scars on his face he finds when looking at the mirror. His mother
comes to check on him then to hug him and remind him that he's got her even if his father is gone
and his sister Inge died. After making him put on his uniform again, Rosie takes Jojo back to the
Jungvolk headquarters, where they find Klenzendorf awkwardly feeding Finkel. Klenzendorf has already
been demoted for negligence, but Rosie still hits him on the groin with her knee and slaps him with
her glove, making him promise he'll give Jojo some work to do, even if it isn't on the field,
and that he'll feel included. Jojo is given the task of putting up propaganda posters around town
and delivering conscriptions, which he does with lots of enthusiasm. One afternoon, while working,
he finds his mother staring at a group of people hanged at a gallows in the public square, and when
Jojo asks her what they did, she replies "what they could". When he goes home later, his mother
isn't there, and he starts to get nervous when he hears noises coming from his sister's room.
He enters the bedroom to investigate and finds a weird mark on the floor that goes up the wall,
so he inserts his knife into it and manages to open a fake section of the wall.
There is a space behind it enough for a person to crawl into and various objects spread around.
At the end of it, he's shocked to find a young girl, Elsa Korr, who follows him out of the room
as he screams and runs around the house in fear. She catches him when he's about to reach the front
door and pushes him against the wall, showing him she has his dagger and admitting she's Jewish,
but she's there because Rosie had invited her to hide in her house. If Jojo tells anyone about her,
Elsa promises she'll say he and Rosie helped her, which would get them killed as well. After
she returns to her hiding spot with his knife, Jojo rushes to his room and discusses his options
with imaginary Hitler. Reaching the conclusion he should negotiate, he grabs a kitchen knife
and a pot to protect himself, then returns to his sister's room to tell Elsa she should find
somewhere else to live. He gets scared again, however, when she surprises him from behind,
takes the kitchen knife as well, and kicks him out of the room. Jojo discusses things with imaginary
Hitler again and they reach the conclusion he should make Elsa feel safe so she'll drop her
guard. When Rosie comes back in the evening, Jojo tells her he's heard noises upstairs,
but she tells him it must've been rats. After Rosie puts Jojo to bed,
she goes to see Elsa to tell her to be more careful, because if something were to happen,
she can't choose her over her own son. She also reminds Elsa that as long as there's at least one
person alive out there, then they are losing. The next day, Jojo goes to the swimming pool,
which should help him with his leg. He notices Klenzendorf and Finkel are there too,
sitting closely together and showing fear of Rosie. After his mom leaves, Jojo approaches them
and asks Klenzendorf what he should do if he found a Jewish person The answer is to call the Gestapo,
who will kill them and whoever helped them. Jojo also wonders how one can even identify a Jewish
person, to which Klenzendorf says he doesn't know either and someone should write a book about it.
Once he gets home, Jojo tries to talk to Elsa again. After pointing out they're at a stalemate
because neither of them can tell on the other if they don't want trouble, he tells her he'll allow
her to stay in exchange for information about the Jewish people, so he can write an exposé book.
Elsa accepts and explains they're people just like him, but since he won't believe her, she says
they're money-loving demons that are allergic to food. Jojo quickly catches on her plan to get him
to bring her food, and when he starts explaining the Aryan race is superior and the Jewish people
are weak, Elsa grabs him, covers his mouth, and shakes him as she explains to him there's nothing
weak about Jewish people before she goes back to her hiding spot. When Rosie comes back in
the evening, she burns something in the fireplace before pouring some wine and playing music - she's
very happy because the Allies have taken Italy and France will be next. Jojo begins arguing
with her for being against her country, so Rosie cuts the conversation short and tells him to eat.
She isn't eating though, claiming she isn't hungry, and Jojo quickly suspects she's saving the
food for Elsa, so he decides to have the leftovers for himself. He thinks that if his father were
here he would understand, and since he wants to see him so badly, Rosie puts on her husband's
jacket and paints a beard on her face with ash to scold Jojo for talking like that to his mother.
Using her husband's voice, she also asks him to take care of her because she's doing the best
she can, then she turns up the music and makes Jojo dance with her. The next day,
Jojo gives Elsa a pencil and paper for her to draw where Jewish people live and where Jewish
women lay their eggs. Elsa starts drawing, but she refuses to answer questions about her family.
However, she does tell Jojo about her fiance Nathan, who is away fighting with the resistance.
The picture she gives Jojo is a drawing of his own head because that's where Jewish people live.
Jojo gets an idea for a plan: he writes a letter pretending to be Nathan breaking up with Else and
reads it to her, who obviously doesn't believe him but it still hurts her to hear such horrible
things about her with her fiance's name attached to it. She rushes back into her hiding spot,
and seeing her so upset and human makes Jojo regret the whole thing, so he writes a new
letter as Nathan saying the last one wasn't true and he does still love her. Elsa thanks him and
asks him to bring her more letters in the future. They play a game of who can name more famous and
important people on their sides, and Elsa wins when she brings up Jesus. Sometime later, Jojo and
Rosie go for a walk to the riverbank, and Rosie tells him how different this area used to be:
there were people all the time there, dancing and enjoying romance, which Jojo looks down on.
Rosie also thinks kids shouldn't be discussing politics, they should be playing and climbing
trees, and everyone should be dancing as a sign of freedom. Jojo looks down on this as well and takes
off on his bike, with Rosie following him closely. When they reach the road, they see a truck of
soldiers return home, looking gloomy and defeated. Jojo goes back to his house in a bad mood as well,
so Elsa tries to distract him by telling him ridiculous fantasy stories about her people.
He starts warming up to her and enjoying her company, for which imaginary Hitler scolds later,
telling him his German brain shouldn't be bossed around. After he goes to sleep, Rosie spends
some time with Elsa, telling her she's glad to have her and see her become a woman since she
couldn't do so with her daughter. The following day, Jojo goes to the Jungvolk headquarters,
where he finds Klenzendorf and Finkel talking to each other with their noses almost touching,
a clear tension between them. Jojo tells them he's writing an exposé on Jewish people,
but they laugh at him, not believing it's real. Klenzendorf decides to share with him some designs
he's made for his and Finkel's uniforms, which are very flamboyant. Then he gives Jojo a new task:
he must collect scrap for the war effort. While walking the streets dressed as a robot,
Jojo sees his mother handing out little anti-Nazi fliers, and he also meets with Yorki, who has
been accepted as a soldier. When Jojo tells him he's captured a Jewish person, Yorki replies he
saw one in the forest and doesn't understand what the big deal is about, which gives Jojo a lot to
think about. He visits Elsa as soon as he returns home and gifts her some colored pencils he's found
around, but he also reminds her it's illegal for a Nazi and a Jewish person to be friends.
Elsa points out he isn't really a Nazi because he hasn't hurt her, he's just a lonely kid trying to
find a place to fit in. They agree to disagree. After Elsa realizes how dirty she's become,
Jojo allows her to leave the room and take a bath, she even borrows some of his sister's clothes.
They're about to have dinner together when someone knocks on the door, and after she runs back to
her hiding spot, Jojo opens the door to find a group of Gestapo officers led by Herman Deertz,
and right after them, Klenzendorf and Finkel arrives as well, saying they had to bring some
pamphlet to Jojo, which sounds like as excuse. The Gestapo immediately starts searching the
house for any suspicious activity as Deertz asks Jojo why his mother is away all day and why his
uniform is lacking his knife. Elsa shows up then, wearing Inge's clothes and pretending to be her.
She tells them she was the one to grab the knife because her brother had been bothering her,
so the Gestapo goes to search her room next. Deertz is still suspicious of her, so he asks
for her papers - Elsa grabs Inge's ID from her drawers and hands it to Klenzendorf, who asks
her for her birthday. Elsa guesses correctly and Klenzendorf lets her go, but Deertz cuts in when
he sees Jojo's exposé book. The Gestapo starts going through it, laughing at all the demonic
drawings of Jewish people, and while Klenzendorf doesn't look too amused, Elsa feels rather upset
and betrayed when they reach a section where Jojo has described all the ways Nathan should die.
Happy not to have found anything wrong, the Gestapo leaves, and Klenzendorf leaves as well
after giving Elsa back the ID and Jojo his knife. Elsa discovers the date on the papers is different
from what she said, which means Klenzendorf has been helping them all along. Jojo points out
nobody really knows Inge is dead, so Elsa could pretend to be her and live with them normally, but
she still feels hurt by the book content so she tells Jojo they can't be friends. Imaginary Hitler
yells at Jojo for trying to befriend Elsa and thinking she's a good person and tells him to get
his priorities straight. While he's out getting some food, Jojo finds Rosie hanged at a gallows
in the public square. Devastated, he clings to her legs and cries his heart out, even trying to tie
up her shoe to no avail. After staring at the body for hours, he goes home with his knife in hand,
blaming Elsa for Rosie's death and ready to stab her for it. She stops his hand just in time and he
only manages to scratch her. As he starts crying again, Elsa takes pity on him and comforts him.
She explains she's always known Rosie is part of the resistance, although she doesn't know
the details, and Jojo's father is fighting for the resistance as well, but Rosie told him the
opposite not to upset him. She also confesses her parents were taken to a concentration camp,
so the two of them only have each other. Jojo starts going to the streets to scavenge food
from waste bins and notices how destroyed the city is becoming every day. He and Elsa begin
a routine together, sharing meals and enjoying the fake letters from Nathan that Jojo writes.
One afternoon, the city enters a chaotic state when the Allies initiate an offensive,
taking advantage of Hitler having killed himself. Jojo comes across Yorki, who is carrying some
weaponry around because the army is so desperate for soldiers that they're sending the kids out.
Jojo tells him the Jewish person he caught is kind of his girlfriend now and he's worried
because it's illegal, but Yorki points out he's met the Russians and the Japanese and they are
worse than Jewish people. Rahm finds them next and after sending Yorki out with a gun, she gives
Jojo a uniform jacket so he won't be shot by their own side by accident. A bomb explodes in the area
then, and Jojo is left dizzy while he watches everyone fight, including kids and the elderly,
and even Klenzendorf and Finkel wearing their flamboyant designs. Jojo is too scared to fight,
so he hides in an abandoned building until it's over. He comes out after things calm down and sees
the Americans take off the Nazi flags to replace them with their own, celebrating their victory.
Soviet soldiers are seizing every Nazi they see, including Deertz and the rest of the Gestapo,
and seeing the jacket Jojo is wearing, they take him as well. He finds Klenzendorf among
the other prisoners, who tells him he's a good boy and that he should take care of his sister
before taking off his jacket and spitting at him, calling him a Jew so that the soldiers
let him go. Jojo can only watch as Klenzendorf is taken away to be executed by a firing squad.
On his way home, Jojo finds Yorki, who says he'll go to see his mother for a cuddle. When he points
out Jojo's girlfriend can be free now, Jojo gets crestfallen at the idea of Elsa leaving and rushes
back to the house. He decides to lie to Elsa and tell her Germany won the war so she can't leave,
but after going through his book and seeing drawings of his mother and a rabbit in a cage,
he pretends to write another letter from Nathan and reads it to her, saying he has a plan to sneak
her out of the city. Then, Elsa finally confesses that Nathan died last year of tuberculosis, but
she's found the letters comforting. Jojo admits that he loves her romantically, but he knows she
only loves him like a brother, which she agrees with, so he wants to help her escape anyway.
Imaginary Hitler is disappointed in him for this and tries to convince him to change his mind,
but Jojo finally stands up to him and kicks him out of the house through the window.
Elsa is hesitant to go out, but Jojo encourages her until she manages to cross the door.
At that moment, a car with the American flag drives by, so Elsa slaps Jojo for having lied
to her. When wondering what to do next, they decide to dance to celebrate their freedom.