Jojo is a sweet little boy who loves his mom. He’s also a Nazi.
Or at least, he thinks he is. You see, Jojo is growing up in Germany during World War II. Nazi posters decorate his room, and Hitler is his imaginary friend. What else is a kid to do?
Attend Nazi youth camp, for starters. But there, it appears that Jojo may not be cut out for the Nazi life. His early-life crisis gets much worse when he learns his mom is hiding a Jewish girl from the authorities.
As Jojo grapples with these realities, he’s determined to get to the bottom of why Elsa and her fellow Jews are evil. In these sad, funny, and touching moments, the movie shines.
The context is horrific, and the movie tries hard to balance it out (even if it may overcompensate). In any case, with its goofy humor; its saturated and magnificent colors; its catchy and upbeat music, it seeks to remind us that even the worst pain is fleeting, and that there will always be beauty in this world.