In a bit of a surprise decision, Jojo Rabbit is this year’s winner of The Toronto Film Festival’s Grolsch People’s Choice Award. First runner-up was Netflix’s Marriage Story, and the second runner-up was Neon’s Cannes winner Parasite.
The winner of the award is chosen by festival moviegoers who vote online following a screening. The festival assures they double check the legitimacy of each vote, and that it came from a ticket holder to prevent gaming of the system.
When Jojo Rabbit had its world premiere at the festival last week, many in attendance said the film likely had the most enthusiastic reaction of all the films after it was screened. While the audience seemed to love, critics have been a bit more divisive. The Taika Waititi effort currently stands at 75% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.
The Fox Searchlight film is about a boy in Nazi Germany who discovers his family is harboring a Jewish girl. A satirical comedy already controversial for edgy comical content revolving around a very serious subject, finds the boy also having conversations with an imaginary idiot friend Adolf Hitler (played by Waititi).
Taika Waititi had this to say about the win:
“Thank you to the Toronto International Film Festival audiences for this tremendous honor. Jojo Rabbit is a story of tolerance and understanding set in a time that lacked both, and I hope in making this film we can remind ourselves that it’s still possible to connect with each other even under the most chaotic of circumstances—no matter what age, religion, race or gender. It was an incredible experience making this film and I’m happy the world had the opportunity to see it for the first time at TIFF.”
Jojo Rabbit begins its platform release on October 18. It has not been considered by most to be in the front tier of possible Best Picture Oscar contenders but the TIFF award certainly boosts its profile a bit.
