Jojo Rabbit

Release Date: October 18, 2019

Watch Date: January 27 – January 28, 2024

“Writer/director Taika Waititi (director of THOR: RAGNAROK and HUNT FOR THE WILDERPEOPLE) brings his signature style of humor and pathos to his latest film, JOJO RABBIT, a World War II satire that follows a lonely German boy (Roman Griffin Davis as Jojo) whose world view is turned upside down when he discovers his single mother (Scarlett Johansson) is hiding a young Jewish girl (Thomasin McKenzie) in their attic. In spite of his idiotic imaginary friend, Adolf Hitler (Waititi), Jojo confronts his blind nationalism.”

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    What makes the ideal Disney movie?

    According to Bob it should be something you can just pop on the tv, grab some popcorn, and watch any time of the day. You don’t need to be in a particular mood, you can watch it and get what you need from it.

    According to me it needs to have the right balance of humor and some sort of important message. Good Disney films strike a balance between finding a way to be about something serious, to have a point, while still being lighthearted enough that you don’t realize that you’re learning and feeling until you walk away just a little bit changed.

    Some romance has never gone amiss either.

    So in an unexpected turn of events, ‘Jojo Rabbit’ kind of ticks all those boxes better than nearly every Disney movie we’ve watched so far.

    It’s full of bright colors and exciting cinematography. The acting is superb. The characters well developed and interesting. The humor comes exactly when you need it too, lighting up even the darkest moments of the film. It deals with deep subject matter, even beyond a backdrop of Germany in World War II, confronting the ideas of blind nationalism, the difficulty of trying to live up to what you believe you must grow up to be, managing in the face of what seems like ultimate defeat, and deciding for oneself what your own beliefs and ethics are. But I could pop some popcorn and sit down and watch it pretty much any day, and while feeling any sort of mood, and get what I need from it.

    Plus, Bob and I are both huge World War II history nerds, so I’m sure we’re a little biased on the subject in general.

    Did I expect a film poster with a picture of a parody of Hitler to grace the top of my Disney list? Absolutely not. But we don’t always anticipate the future, and this is definitely not what I would have guessed if someone had asked what our top 3 was going to be.

    I wouldn’t say that this is in any way a child friendly movie, unless you want to explain a lot of history, provide a lot of context, and are prepared to have a sit down with your children and have a frank and open discussion about racism. But it feels almost lighthearted enough that you could watch it with kids? Maybe that’s just because I grew up with a father who threw on WWII documentaries at every opportunity, and went around singing “Sink the Bismarck” as he did his weekend chores. So my opinion on that might be a little skewed.

    I want to clarify here that we absolutely did not watch this movie with our children, and never would. I’m just saying it feels like you could. Again, I don’t recommend it, and wouldn’t do it myself.

    Honestly, this was a fun date night movie. We laughed, a lot. But we also got to have deep conversations about the history of the war, the levels of extreme propaganda that the German nation was exposed to during that period, the realities of being a child soldier, and whether or not the mother character was well developed enough (Bob said she wasn’t), and if the film could have used more parody Hitler (Bob says it could have).

    This film ends on a hopeful note, and for a world that seems to be looking down the barrel of a potential third World War, from a country whose part of a commonwealth where the country that’s technically in charge of mine is considering a draft, hope is what’s needed right now. A deep understanding that we are all human, and that the differences that seem to divide us so thoroughly in to tribes can be surmounted and put aside if only we took the time to try to understand one another.

    Or, as Captain K did, one can know all that, and still manage to put on a ridiculous outfit and go to war for what seems like the fun of it.

    You know, to each their own.