Pinocchio (2022)

Score: 4.5 / 5

Easily the most beautiful adaptation of the classic story, this may also be the most original, which is saying something of a work adapted countless times in many languages and times and places. Pinocchio, originally published in 1883 in Italy, is currently conceived as a timeless tale in which a lonely man makes a wooden boy puppet or doll who comes to life and must learn what it means not only to be human but to grow up as one. Most widely popularized in the 1940 animated Disney musical, which was also remade in 2022 (I usually love the Disney live action remakes, but this one was middling at best), the story tends to embrace heavily moralized themes of honesty and integrity and sacrifice. The "point" of the story, apart from his nose, is Pinocchio's quest to become a "real boy."

Finally, an adaptation with less moralizing and more speculating comes to us, courtesy of Netflix, from the dark master of the fey and fantastic Guillermo del Toro. The film, which bears his name in the title due to his visionary approach, is remarkably -- and directly oppositional to Disney's two approaches -- entirely done practically. Del Toro's first stop-motion film is the kind of brilliant project that almost makes you wonder how it wasn't the first stop-motion animated film ever made, or at least something like it. For a story that not only questions reality and constantly crosses the boundaries between life and death, but that is indeed about all the animates and inanimates in between, stop-motion is probably the singularly perfect medium for storytelling. It's the ideal combination of material and form, one that emphasizes del Toro's own involvement like Geppetto's (the lonely old man and creator of the titular character) in that the human touch and eye literally creates every painstakingly realized frame of this film.

Interestingly, this Pinocchio also has its updates, and so while it adapts a lot of themes from the original fable, it also updates it slightly, heightening the stakes and increasing our curiosity as del Toro and his team move us forward a bit to the era of World War II. In this atmosphere, under the fraught shadow of Mussolini in power, Geppetto (voiced by David Bradley from Harry Potter and Game of Thrones) is driven to drunken depression after his son Carlo is killed in their idyllic town by a wayward bomb. A grieving Geppetto eventually carves his puppet replacement in a scene eerily reminiscent of Frankenstein, all narrated by a delightful Sebastian J. Cricket (an excellent Ewan McGregor). It's the kind of scene that we'd expect to see in a traditional Grimm-style fairytale, where wishes and death are much closer than they are in subsequent fantasies.

When a Wood Sprite (Tilda Swinton, of course) gifts the puppet with consciousness, we begin to see a familiar del Toro at work. He's not interested in Disney-fied versions of fairies, but rather of older, darker understandings of "monsters" and the otherworldly. The Wood Sprite seems more like a biblical angel than a cultural one; much later in the story, a Sphinx-like beast seems to lord over the realm of Death (also voiced by Swinton), and we're reminded that del Toro is very much interested in these things artistically and philosophically, making these moments stand out in a movie already chock-full of spectacular and memorable material. His story is decidedly not taking any inspiration from Christian or even Western ideas.

Del Toro and co-writer Patrick McHale sprinkle some excellent pithy morals and aphorisms in their dialogue, most of which skirt the familiar morals of the last few decades of children's fare, seemingly advocating for more mature themes. Sebastian at one critical point declares, "I try my best, and that's the best anyone can do," and that's the kind of wise perspective that sets him (and this film) apart. Pinocchio's tale here isn't always between lying and honesty, but in fact between life and death itself, and as he "grows up," he learns that life doesn't exist in those ideal forms -- or any idealization -- but rather in the space between them as we learn through failures and successes. It helps that this Pinocchio (voiced by Gregory Mann) looks more puppet-like than many iterations, and his abrasive naivete is on full display rather than sidelined. Children aren't usually perfectly behaved curious little cherubs, and it's refreshing to see that in a film that would otherwise be deemed "for children."

It helps, too, that del Toro himself has long championed, in his film, the monstrous and misunderstood who have been hurt by the "civilized" world. He seems to be quite in love with his odd little puppet, and perhaps that's why he clearly wanted his Pinocchio to look more naturalistic and even tree-like. Anything, he seems to say, but a depiction of a typical little boy or even anything too structured, perhaps to continue his ongoing commentary on the dangers of fascist ideologies. It's telling, I think, that apart from Mussolini himself -- who the film directly mocks -- the other major male characters are wicked, including the villainous Count Volpe (Christoph Waltz) who abuses his monkey Spazzatura (Cate Blanchett) and Pinocchio while on tour as well as a government official named Podesta (Ron Perlman) who strictly disciplines his son Candlewick (Finn Wolfhard). One wonders, too, if the often-repeated setting of the town church and visuals of the crucifix indicate del Toro's critical commentary extends to the Catholic church. I suspect it does.

Ultimately, the film leaves us with a surprisingly soft reminder that death isn't always something to be feared, but rather to be respected. Mortality is a gift, even as it curses us with sorrow and pain during life. Even the dual-cast roles of Geppetto's biological son and created son as well as the Wood Sprite and Death indicate a duality of life across the bridge of death. It's at once sobering and refreshing for this kind of thematic content in an animated straight-to-streaming feature, reminding us all that the most beautiful and lovely things in life are what we make, faults and all, out of hardship and tragedy and horror. And maybe some of the lovely things we make will continue on after we're gone, enriching the lives of those who come after. Who knew Pinocchio could be such a philosophical journey?