Jojo Rabbit just wants to become a good nazi

Jojo Rabbit (Roman Griffin Davis) is a ten-year-old boy who lives in Germany in the late years of World War II. Therefore, it is understandable and very normal that his role model is a character considered heroic by the German nation of the time: Adolf Hitler (Taika Waititi), who is even his imaginary friend.

Of course, creating a caricature view of the Führer can be problematic within a current film. Still, director Taika Waititi conducts the narrative to superimpose fantastic and funny scenes with painful moments and extreme violence.

Accustomed to a conscious and enlightened view of the barbarities of the Third Reich, we tend to call banality the treatment given to the pathetic Hitler. Actually, the apparent innocence of the German leader generates his strength, both for children and for infantilized crowds who idolize him as a good companion.

Thus, Johannes tries to insert himself into the Nazi youth. Still, his pure and innocent nature does not adapt naturally to the culture of the destruction of the enemy that characterizes the ideology of the dominant culture at the time. However, bullying is mitigated by the ambiguity of the training camp commander, Captain Klenzendorf (Sam Rockwell), who is sometimes ruthless and sensitive.

When, after an accident with a grenade, Jojo is forced to stay at home, he makes a discovery that is the great twist of the film: his mother, Rosie (Scarlett Johansson), hides a Jew, the young Elsa ((Thomasin McKenzie), in an attic bedroom closet.

The character's introduction creates tough questions for the kid, and liking the clandestine resident is the least of them. Suddenly, the aspiring Nazi becomes intimate in real life with a girl he thinks is a monster and begins to walk away from a monster he thinks is a friend. And what's worse, not being able to report her so as not to put your mother at risk.

Naturally, history follows its course and everything that has to happen happens. The movie's end is somewhat melancholy without the contradictions that move it.