Having the right to play.

“But Rosie nevertheless holds on to her joy at being alive. That joy isn’t naïve, or rooted in a denial of reality. Rather, it is an act of defiance, which makes a more powerful anti-fascist statement than any of the film’s mockery of its Nazi characters—a refusal to be made cruel and dejected by a world that has turned into a nightmare. ‘Welcome home, boys! Go kiss your mothers!’ Rosie cheerfully calls out to a truck full of defeated, injured soldiers headed into town, and when asked what she’ll do when the war ends, she answers, ‘dance,’ even as she lessens her odds of reaching that day by hiding Elsa, and leaving messages of defiance around the town. It’s not the sort of story one tends to see about this period, and I couldn’t help but wish that it was the story Jojo Rabbit had chosen to tell.” —Abigail Nussbaum