after liking the previews awhile back, I had almost forgotten about this little movie, but Boy saw it earlier this week and suggested I see it, that is was my kind of movie. I have to say that it was more than I expected, yes it had a lot of dark comedy, but there was a bit of sad story too which we had to ride along with. Jojo is the little boy and in the first scene he is talking himself up as he is getting ready to join the Hitler Youth movement in Germany at the height of the WWII campaign. He has an Adolf Hitler imaginary friend and he is pumping him up something fierce to be the best little German warrior he can be, even as Hitler tells him he is kind of scrawny and not very much, he should still make himself the most he can be. He is so pumped up he comes out onto the street yelling and flapping his arm in a Heil Hitler manner to any and all he sees as he heads to the camp.
At the camp, we see hundreds of boys looking more like Boy Scouts than army infantry. They are coached by Sam Rockwell in German regalia, asking to himself loudly "why am I here leading you and not out fighting like a real man?" We kind of figure he has been demoted because he is a little "light in the loafers". He does not take his responsibility seriously and I don't get the feeling he is a big supporter of the German cause. While at the campsite, the older teens have the class with Jojo and they ask the little boys, who are around 10, if they are killers. They all scream yes, of course. Jojo is chosen to prove it and they give him a rabbit to kill which he can't do. He declines and the older boys make fun of him calling him Jojo Rabbit and he runs off. His imaginary Hitler convinces him the rabbit is just as tough and cunning as the lion and the hawk, for it must survive in a world constantly trying to kill it. Again, he gets all excited and heads straight to get himself discharged from the Hitler Youth Program by doing something bordering on stupid.
The cast is pretty good with Sam Rockwell, Scarlett Johansen as his mom, Rebel Wilson adding comic relief as a coach at the camp, and other familiar faces. I don't want to give up too much, but Jojo has a friend Yorki who makes it through the training camp and we see him going through the changes in uniform from kid to dressing like a soldier, first with a rifle on his back and then a mortar launcher, clumsily setting one off towards a local building when he dropped his launcher upon seeing his friend. Towards the end, Yorki is looking like an old man, ending up in a wife beater and simply declaring he wants to go home and have a good cuddle from his mom.
There is a certain sadness when you step away from the humor, the use of children at war is something done by the desperate and can't be a good thing. The children don't understand what they are fighting for and will just try to please those they believe are like them. Jojo is wiser beyond his years and his experiences help him see things more clearly than most adults around him. Yorki stays with the cause and though we just laugh at his chubby antics, thinking about it, he has to have seen some horrible things fighting for his country as we can see the destruction of war hanging on what is left of his military fatigues. Jojo experiences for a brief second or two the power of war as the Americans are making their last push into his village. Jojo experiences loss too, but in the end, I think he has a good chance of growing up in a new world and being someone who matters as we see him growing and learning.
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