At the London Film Festival premiere of Pinocchio, director Guillermo del Toro introduced the film with an anecdote about how he was introduced to Disney’s adaptation as a child by his mother. It had such an influence on him that he tried to adapt the story into a film all these years before with homemade clay figures. Decades on, it’s an interesting context from which to approach the film, as we are met with a story about both parenthood and creation as an act of love.
A retelling of the familiar story, Guillermo del Toro and Mark Gustafson’s Pinocchio plants the story in mid-century Italy against a backdrop of creeping fascism. We are introduced firstly not to the film’s titular character, but Geppetto (David Bradley), a father who lost his son in a bombing years prior. In a moment of drunken mania, he assembles the puppet Pinocchio (Gregory Mann) in the boy’s image, introducing the first tragic wrinkle in the film’s approach and making plain that this is a story about expectations.
As the story goes, the puppet is brought to life by a kind spirit, in this case a wood sprite voiced by Tilda Swinton. Geppetto initially rejects the boy but quickly warms to him after witnessing his treatment by the town’s people and recognising something of his late son in him. After a mishap with Count Volpe (Christoph Waltz), a travelling showman who has tricked Pinocchio into his employ, he is met with the choice of joining the man on his tour or serving as a soldier in the country’s military. The film follows Pinocchio on an unusual odyssey where he eventually takes up both of these roles, as his father attempts to track him down alongside the cricket Sebastian (Ewan McGregor).
Much of the film is spent with people who are trying to impose their own wills on Pinocchio, from Volpe to fascist general Podestà (Ron Perlman), who hopes to turn him into the perfect soldier. However, in these very black-and-white questions of duty and obedience is where the film plants its most emotional arc, as Geppetto is forced to look inwards at his own unfair expectations of his second son. The film is refreshingly non-judgemental in this regard, and David Bradley especially gets to shine as this journey plays out. Guillermo del Toro has spoken about how he wanted to make a film about the value of disobedience, and the film is incredibly nuanced about the differing forms that can take.
Unfortunately, surrounding these ideas is a lot of stuff that didn’t come together for me. While the film looks fantastic, it occasionally feels hollow, with cardboard cutout characters and moments that are almost mechanical in how they rush from point A to point B. It’s a hard issue to describe, but watching the film, I was rarely excited. Similarly, the film’s flirtation with being a musical is disappointingly halfhearted, with unmemorable songs and little theatricality to accompany them. Despite a competent performance from the film’s young star, that Pinocchio’s introduction is set to a mostly bad song is not a good omen of anything to come.
Broadly, despite flirting with some really interesting themes and featuring some great set pieces, the film feels lacking in a coherent identity or focal point to ground the experience in. The Pinocchio character is flat by design, but for much of the film, he is the only character we have to follow, and it makes it feel more like a guided tour through some ideas than watching a story play out.
The film’s most compelling ideas by far are those surrounding parenthood and creation, both in the introduction of Pinocchio as a surrogate son for a grieving father, introducing an inherent level of tragedy, and in the film itself as a similar attempt to recapture something intangible. Though not the original source text, the film is especially curious in parallel with Disney’s retelling, as many of its images and choices appear to be direct invocations or rebuttals of that film’s approach.
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio is undeniably a labour of love, and for that reason it’s hard to hate. I only wish I couldn’t see the strings.
