Jojo Rabbit is an early and divisive Oscar contender for Fox Searchlight
And just like that, we’re off to the Oscar races, much to the dismay of many critics, apparently. This movie got a massive reaction from the crowds at Toronto, according to all reports, which is why I’m not that surprised that it took this prize, the first big bellwether of Oscar season (not since 2011 has the winner not been nominated for Best Picture). But it’s currently got a 49 on Metacritic, which means a lot of major critics not only took issue with it, but flat out despised it. The movie, directed by Thor: Ragnarok’s Taika Waititi, appears to be extremely divisive, with people either loving or hating it, but this could be a critics versus audience thing (remember, Bohemian Rhapsody had a 49 on Metacritic too). I was instantly suspicious when I saw several comparisons to 1997’s Life is Beautiful, a movie that was also hated by a lot of critics (and for similar reasons- for supposedly trivializing Nazis and the Holocaust), but audiences didn’t care and it turned into the most popular foreign-language film of all time in the U.S. (still surpassed today only by Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) and was a major Oscar contender that year. So Jojo Rabbit is in the Oscar race with this win, whether they like it or not. Runners-up were the well reviewed Marriage Story and Parasite, but in no year has all three of the TIFF winners made it into Best Picture, so history says at least one of those will miss.
