Movie Review: Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio (2022)

Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio (2022) co-directed by Guillermo del Toro and Mark Gustafson, co-written by Guillermo del Toro and Patrick McHale based on the novel by Carlo Collodi

In an imaginative and original retelling, Guillermo del Toro moves the story of Pinocchio to the early twentieth century. Geppetto (David Bradley) is a distraught woodworker. His son Carlo was born in 1906 and his wife died before the story begins. Raising the boy alone, he has a happy life until World War I when a bomb drops on the town's church as he and Carlo are working on a new crucifix. The boy dies in the explosion, leaving Geppetto depressed to the point of disfunction. Several decades later, Sebastian J. Cricket (Ewan McGregor) moves into the tree by Carlo's grave on the day that Geppetto decides, in a moment of wrath, to cut down the tree (which was grown from a seed Carlo had). Geppetto hauls the trunk back to his workshop where he builds a puppet. Cricket sees some wood fairies following along. They come to Geppetto's house and give life to the puppet. Geppetto is overawed and delighted and terrified about the new boy. He gets back to work on the crucifix and tries to protect Pinocchio from a less-than-understanding society around him. If the superstitious reactions of the churchgoers were not enough, the local fascist ruler Podesta (Ron Perlman) takes too much interest in Pinocchio, hoping to groom him into an unkillable soldier (World War II is looming). Before Podesta can get his hands on Pinocchio, the wooden boy is charmed by Dottore (John Turturro), a carnival owner who thinks the animated puppet will revive the shows sagging sales.

The movie follows the familiar beats of the Pinocchio story while adding new material to give it a different focus. Pinocchio is not so much searching to become a real boy as he is learning about the world around him and finding his own identity. Geppetto at first sees him as a substitute Carlo; the fascists as a super-soldier in the making; the carnies as a meal ticket. Cricket tries to provide a moral conscience though he is more ineffective than in other versions of the story. Pinocchio slowly learns to be a good person and what it means to love others, to be his own person. The heart of the story is kept while the focus shifts.

Visually, the movie is amazing. The animation style is stop-motion, giving the characters and places more weight and resonance. The fairy world (including and interesting version of an afterlife) is imaginatively rendered in del Toro's distinctive style. Fascist Italy still has the beauty of the Italian countryside and towns while the veneer of oppression makes things darker (a favorite color palette for del Toro). He does not treat his world like it is children's entertainment. He has a mixture of wonder and danger, heart-ache and joy. So much detail is shown, making it a real world even if it is not entirely our world. 

The movie has songs but does not feel like a musical. Some fit naturally into the story, like the mother's lullaby that Geppetto sings to Carlo or the stage songs Pinocchio sings at the carnival. The songs are fun (especially Cricket's song which keeps getting interrupted) but not particularly memorable. They fit nicely with the world that del Toro crafts.

Highly recommended--this is not the same old Pinocchio that everyone is familiar with, it stands on its own as a fine and engaging story.