The Pitch: 2022 has really seemed like The Year of Pinocchio. While the original 1883 Italian novel by Carlo Collodi has had its fair share of adaptations over the years (from classic Disney delights to, well, Pauly Shore in middle-aged twink mode), this year saw new takes on the material from two of cinema’s most acclaimed directors. But where Robert Zemeckis’ retelling felt morbid and soulless, master of the macabre Guillermo del Toro returns to gift us with a version that hits the classic beats of the fable, while slotting it handily into the concerns and aesthetics the director has pursued his entire career.
The lumber is the same, but the construction is quite different: Pinocchio (the cherubic Gregory Mann) is still the wooden boy whittled into existence by old carpenter Geppetto (David Bradley), left to discover the joys and vagaries of the outside world with the help of a very moralistic cricket (Ewan McGregor). But del Toro, alongside co-director and stop motion titan Mark Gustafson, twist and bend the story to fit del Toro’s uniquely dark fairytales.
It’s now set against the backdrop of 1930s fascist Italy, where even the most far-off villages must endure the performative heiling and administrative presence of a local Podestà (Ron Perlman) who holds the town, and his browbeaten son (Finn Wolfhard), in a fascistic grip. Rather than a willing dispenser of ethical truths, Sebastian J. Cricket is a grumpy memoirist who lives literally inside Pinocchio’s heart (as he was carved from the tree where Sebastian had made his home).
And, in a surprisingly new twist for both 2022 adaptations, Pinocchio is burdened with the terrible duty of replacing Geppetto’s lost son, killed after a stray bomb hits the church in which he’s frolicking. A wood sprite (Tilda Swinton) gives life — seemingly eternal, as we learn — to the doll, hoping to restore light to the grieving father. But as with all sons, the pressure of expectation can sometimes prove too great for both father and child, sending Pinocchio on a quest to find himself and explore the strange ways of the mortal world.
A Hidden Life: del Toro has been clamoring to tell his version of Pinocchio for years, if not decades, and it’s easy to see why: It’s a cornerstone story for him personally, an inspiration for so many of the dark fantasies we associate with him.
And indeed, this version feels as assured and personal as any we’ve seen from him: the lapsed Catholicism, the ways war strips away innocence, the grim costs of magical gifts. In this way, Pinocchio is of a piece with works like Pan’s Labyrinth (Swinton’s wood sprite reminds one of Doug Jones’ faun) and The Devil’s Backbone (one shot of a bomb dropping from the POV of the bomber is repeated in both films) — morality tales presented through the otherworldly sheen of the supernatural.
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (Netflix)
There’s also no small amount of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein in this version, with the outside world struggling to reckon with an inhuman innocent who himself has to learn the terrible violence of humanity. Pinocchio’s uncanniness is made clear in his very design; he’s unfinished, unpainted, dotted eyes peering out from above a splintered smile. He scrambles to walk in his early minutes of life, crawling around Geppetto’s home like a spider. You can still see the grain on his wooden skin, the nails hammered into his back.
He looks like a figure damned to perdition, which makes Mann’s perky, childlike performance doubly tragic. It’s not just Frankenstein; it’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence, another Pinocchio story about the difficult lessons a child must learn in the wide world. Where Jude Law’s Gigolo Joe mutters, “I am. I was,” del Toro’s tale suggests that “What happens, happens. And then we are gone.”
To their credit, del Toro (alongside co-writer Patrick Hughes, whose autumnal sensibilities from Over the Garden Wall carry over here, along with its simplistic, if catchy, spate of songs) whittles and shapes the original story into a winsome conduit for all of these concerns, juggling exciting sequences of prison breaks and, yes, the famous jaunt into the belly of a whale with its touching tragedies of life under fascism.
Over the course of the film, Pinocchio bounces between control of three father figures: Geppetto, who loves him the most but struggles to accept him; the Podestà, who sees him as an “ideal soldier” for use in the war (complete with a dirt-soaked detour to a fascist youth training camp); and Christoph Waltz’s carnival barker, who tempts the boy with promises of wealth and prestige while robbing him of every penny he’s got. As the ol’ Cricket tells us up front, this is a tale of “imperfect fathers and imperfect sons,” and that’s borne out in every stitch of the film’s heartwarming script.
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (Netflix)
Oh, the Pain: As a work of stop-motion, Pinocchio is breathtakingly designed and animated; cinematographer Frank Passingham (Kubo and the Two Strings) offers sunbeams and spotlights along the otherworldly glow of a purplish afterlife. The character and puppet designs are astounding achievements, from the aforementioned title tot to the exaggerated features of Geppetto, the multi-eyed wood sprite, and Cate Blanchett’s delightfully mercurial monkey Spazzatura. Alexandre Desplat’s honeyed score pours sumptuously over the entire affair, evoking the romanticism of his work for The Shape of Water (for which he won an Oscar for Best Original Score).
Sure, the songs can grate after a while, as they drag on and evince a not-particularly-sophisticated lyrical flair. And yet, there’s something to the simplicity of those songs that clashes with the thematic complexity of their works, as if Geppetto and Pinocchio are scrambling desperately for what nuggets of easy pleasure they can find in a world so hostile to them. Coupled with the painstaking craft that the film’s team of 40 or so animators throw into every single frame, the whole affair is a delight to behold, regardless of how much a younger audience might internalize its themes of death and rebirth.
The Verdict: Del Toro’s films are works of bizarre magic, which feel at once close to home and unlike anything you’ll ever see. Pinocchio is no different, even as the filmmaker branches out into animation (feature-wise, at least; he’s supervised CG animated tales like Trollhunters for some time now) for this most personal of tales. It’s easily one of the best animated films of the year, and one of the most assured, endearing works of del Toro’s filmography.
Where’s It Playing? Pinocchio is currently playing in select theaters and comes to Netflix on December 9th.
Trailer:
