In the dark, bureaucratic halls of 1940s Germany, the Nazi war machine was fueled by fear, propaganda, and the unquestioning loyalty of its youth. But in 2018, on a colorful film set in the Czech Republic, a very different kind of battle was being waged—one fought with satire, heart, and a 10-year-old boy who just wanted to fit in. This was the making of Jojo Rabbit , Taika Waititi’s audacious, Oscar-winning adaptation of Christine Leunens’ novel Caging Skies .
The film’s most devastating pivot comes without satire. Rosie, Jojo’s buoyant, life-affirming mother, is the moral center. She dances in the living room, scolds Jojo for his “Führer” obsession, and tries to teach him that love is the strongest force in the world. Her fate—a quiet, horrifying discovery on a town square gallows, her shoes slowly kicking in the wind—snaps the film’s comedic register in half. It is a reminder that in a regime of monsters, being a decent person is the most dangerous act of all. Jojo Rabbit
Here, the informative heart of the story beats. Jojo Rabbit is not a film about the Holocaust; it is a film about the unlearning of hatred. Elsa, who is sharp, resilient, and terrified, slowly dismantles every racist caricature the Nazis have fed Jojo. When Jojo, armed with a crudely illustrated book titled The Facts About the Jews , tries to “identify” her based on mythical features—horns, scales, a love of money—Elsa wearily plays along, creating absurd lies (like Jews living in caves and liking “feeling cold”) that Jojo desperately wants to believe. The comedy is not at the expense of Jewish suffering, but at the expense of the ridiculous, manufactured nature of bigotry. In the dark, bureaucratic halls of 1940s Germany,
The production of the film mirrored its thematic tightrope walk. Waititi, who is of Jewish descent (his mother is Jewish), deliberately chose to make Hitler a clown. “You can’t reason with a monster,” he explained. “But you can laugh at one. Laughter makes them small.” He cast himself as Hitler to strip the dictator of any monumental menace, reducing him to a needy, lisping toddler with a bad mustache. Meanwhile, the film’s visual language—sun-drenched streets, primary colors, and a soundtrack mixing German folk songs with The Beatles’ “I Want to Hold Your Hand”—creates a fairy-tale shell that slowly cracks to reveal the brutal reality beneath. The film’s most devastating pivot comes without satire
The film’s central irony, and its genius, is that this imaginary Führer is a symptom of Jojo’s desperation for belonging, not of innate evil.
That dance is the story’s final thesis: In the face of utter ruin, hatred can be unlearned, but only through human connection. Jojo Rabbit dares to ask whether a ten-year-old Nazi fanatic deserves our compassion. Its bold, uncomfortable answer is yes—because the most dangerous imaginary friend isn’t Hitler. It’s the lie that anyone is beyond saving.
The story begins with Johannes "Jojo" Betzler, a lonely, impressionable ten-year-old living in a provincial German town as World War II grinds to a desperate close. Like many boys his age, Jojo is indoctrinated by the Hitler Youth, believing that serving the Führer is the highest calling. But unlike other boys, Jojo’s internal conflict is made literal: his best friend is an imaginary version of Adolf Hitler. Played with absurd, goofy charm by writer-director Taika Waititi, this Hitler is a farcical buffoon—a childish confidant who encourages Jojo’s worst impulses while eating unicorn meat and being generally useless.