Review: Gorgeous and grotesque, 'Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio' is one of the best films of 2022
Bob Strauss December 2, 2022Updated: December 7, 2022, 6:30 pm
"Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio" is a stop-motion animated film that's been marinating in del Toro's head for a long time. Photo: Netflix
"Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio" is a most amazing creature.
Not easy when telling a story that seems to get a film adaptation every other year (or, if you count Disney+'s recent, god-awful version, every couple of months). Yet formally, thematically, emotionally, one might even say spiritually, del Toro and co-director Mark Gustafson ("Fantastic Mr. Fox") amaze with boundless fresh takes on Carlo Collodi's 19th century tale of a living puppet.
This stop-motion animated version has been a dream of del Toro's since his movie-obsessed childhood in Guadalajara, and it shows. Not only are painstakingly manipulated puppets an ideal medium for the adventures of "the little wooden boy made of pine," as he's referred to in the film; every image is informed by the "Pan's Labyrinth" and "The Shape of Water" director's brand of gorgeous grotesque, from card-playing skeletal rabbits to the ugliest giant dogfish to ever swallow ships whole.
Pinocchio here is hardly the rosy-cheeked cherub Walt Disney imprinted on our brains, but a spindly collection of potential splinters with exposed nails and metal joints (Geppetto was drunk when he carved him). He's got a Frankenstein monster quality, but made by del Toro so you have to love him.
Pinocchio is voiced by Gregory Mann in "Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio." Photo: Netflix
Exuberantly voiced by the young English actor Gregory Mann, this Pinocchio may be the most innocent incarnation yet, but he's also the most subversive. His personality is set up on his first morning of life by the song "Everything Is New to Me" — like several in the film, composed by Alexandre Desplat, with del Toro contributing some lyrics — in which he giddily discovers uses for hammers (correct: smash things), chamber pots (wrong: not a hat) and whatever else can wreak happy havoc.
This approach continues through a long, often dark scenario, some of which is taken from Collodi's Italian children's story, a lot dreamed up by del Toro and co-scripter Patrick McHale and informed by film references, ranging from John Carpenter's "The Thing" to Satyajit Ray's "Distant Thunder."
The screenwriters' most humanizing idea is a running commentary on the expectations and disappointments between fathers and sons. Geppetto, voiced with heartbroken weariness by David Bradley, wishes his wild wooden boy would obediently behave. Pinocchio wonders why the woodcarver can't accept him as he made him.
A scene from "Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio," a stop-motion version of Carlo Collodi's classic story. Photo: Netflix
Collodi's story has also been moved up to the first half of the 20th century, so one of del Toro's favorite pastimes, critiquing fascism, can be applied in full force. Few chances are missed to satirize or lament Mussolini's Italy in brutal, subtle and scatological terms.
If all of this sounds a bit heavy, think of it as ballast for a movie that's awash in fantastic fun. Ewan McGregor does narrator duties as one Sebastian J. Cricket, a realistic-looking bug with literary pretensions who lives, literally and symbolically, in Pinocchio's heart (a hole in the puppet's wooden chest). He also gets squished a lot.
Christoph Waltz is vocally despicable as crooked carnival impresario Count Volpe; this is voice casting of the highest order. Cate Blanchett, on the other hand, is a splendid goof as Volpe's hench-monkey Spazzatura. "Tar's" highbrow dialogue queen is all grunts, squeaks and cackles — until her debased character, too, finds a moral center.
In the obvious casting department, Tilda Swinton does double duty as the voices of otherworldly entities Wood Sprite, who brings Pinocchio to life, and Death, whom he encounters on a regular basis. These masked creatures are marvels of sphinx-like design, with horns and wings full of eyeballs, serpent tails and haughty attitudes that have room for bits of feeling where it counts.
Sebastian J. Cricket is voiced by Ewan McGregor in "Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio." Photo: Netflix
Which, in the end, is what distinguishes this "Pinocchio." Yes, there are kinetic underwater sequences that look impossible to pull off. Boys are tragically turned into soldiers rather than donkeys this time. And Pinocchio learns that lying can be OK when a tree branch could come in handy. But the most amazing change to the old story is the effective case the film makes for love conquering all: mortality, repressive society, one's own limiting judgments.
It's a remarkably life-affirming message coming from a mess of animated puppets and a monster-loving filmmaker.
N"Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio": Animated drama. Starring voices of Ewan McGregor, David Bradley, Gregory Mann, Christoph Waltz and Tilda Swinton. Directed by Guillermo del Toro and Mark Gustafson. (PG. 117 minutes.) In select theaters now and available to stream on Netflix starting Friday, Dec. 9.
Bob Strauss
Bob Strauss Bob Strauss is a Los Angeles freelance journalist who has covered movies, television and the business of Hollywood for more than three decades.
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