10 Year Old Boy Having Hitler as His Imaginary Friend

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.