Italy in the 1930s frames a haunting tale where a carpenter named Geppetto discovers life again in a puppet he carves from pine. Following the loss of his son Carlo in World War I, a grieving widow begins shaping a wooden figure beside the grave of her child. A traveling scene unfolds with a mysterious cricket named Sebastian and the puppet maker’s world is upended when the wooden boy awakens with a voice and a will of his own. The man who created him finds his own heart mending as the puppet, now called Pinocchio, begins to speak and move at night, guided by a Dryad who brings a strange tenderness to the story. Yet danger looms as a calculating foe named Count Volpe seeks to redirect Pinocchio’s fate toward darker ends. Accompanying the puppet on a globe-trotting life are a charismatic puppeteer and his monkey, Sprezzatura, alongside the Podesta who leans toward fascist power and dreams of molding Pinocchio into a weapon of war.
Guillermo del Toro carries a long-standing fascination with Pinocchio, nourished by childhood memories of classic Disney animation and a deep love for pulp horror. The filmmaker aspired to craft his own version for many years, a project that initially struggled to secure funding. At one point, the dream relied on a fully puppeted approach rather than a fully animated character, a vision that persisted until Netflix stepped in following the director’s earlier success with The Shape of Water. With Netflix aboard, the project finally moved from ambition to realization and the puppet came to life on screen.
The resulting film stands out as a definitive expression of del Toro’s sensibilities, earning recognition as Pinocchio at its most distinctly del Toro. It marks a departure from prior incarnations, presenting a sober, dreamlike narrative that blends sorrow with wonder. The animal fables at the heart of the story become deeply affecting, and the tale mirrors the dark beauty of Pan’s Labyrinth by situating a fairy tale within the grim realities of a fascist regime.
Among the notable shifts is a reimagined ensemble of characters and settings. The fox, the cat, and the puppet theater owner are now closely tied to Count Volpe, while Pinocchio himself is drawn into a militarized children’s camp rather than a perilous Isle of Pleasure. The film also revises the ideological underpinnings of the original Carlo Collodi work and its popular Disney adaptation. In this retelling, Pinocchio’s world loses its suffocating sense of inevitability as it becomes a space for questioning obedience and power. The story reframes obedience not as a virtue of blind conformity but as a prompt to challenge authority figures, whether the ruthless Mussolini figure or the existential threat of death itself, as the Dryad figures into the struggle in surprising ways. This shift elevates the tale beyond a simple maturation of a wooden boy into a meditation on what it means to be human, to cherish life, and to love with courage in the face of overwhelming cruelty. The film embraces a bold reclamation of the fairy tale’s purpose, inviting viewers to relearn the values at the heart of human dignity and resilience even under the shadow of war and tyranny. The journey of Pinocchio becomes a testament to the enduring impulse toward humanity, a reminder that truth, compassion, and personal integrity can emerge even in the most brutal circumstances. In this sense, the cinematic Pinocchio is more than a child’s fable; it is a lucid, troubling, and ultimately hopeful exploration of life when it is tested by fear, suppression, and the cost of freedom.