Cruella Review

In recent years Disney has gone back to their animated back catalogue so they can turn these classics into live-action films. Their latest film, Cruella, focuses on one of Disney’s greatest villains and sets the record straight for her.

Estella Miller (Tipper Selfert-Cleveland) is a creative, forthright, yet disruptive child. After her mother’s death, Estella runs away to London and befriends two street urchins. As an adult, Estella (Emma Stone), operates as a pickpocket with Jasper (Joel Fry) and Horace (Paul Walter Hauser). Yet Estella’s dream of working in the fashion industry. Estella gets her opportunity when she works at the Liberty Department Store, and for the revered designer known as The Baroness (Emma Thompson).

The Disney remakes vary in quality and loyalty to their source material. Some were pretty much shot-for-shot remakes, others offer some alterations but still stick closely to the story, and the third camp of films were revisionist takes. Cruella was a revisionist film in the vein of Maleficent because it aimed to tell the story from the villain’s point of view. This was an issue considering the film was about a character who wanted to skin puppies and her name was pretty much ‘Cruel Devil.’ The film had to go out of its way to justify Cruella’s hatred for dalmatians and getting her lackeys to dognap.

The trailers for Cruella made it look like it was going to be Disney’s version of the Joker movie. The trailers made it look like Cruella was driven to villainy by society’s cruelty. The film was not actually like that, but it was also messy. Cruella started like it was going to be a 1960s Dickensian story, then Emma Stone did a mini re-enactment of The Favourite as she does menial work at the department store, and it ends up as a heist film. When Cruella becomes a fashion designer and crashed the Baroness’ events it reminded me of Emily in Paris’ Season One finale. The runtime was 134 minutes long and this was felt.

Craig Gillespie was brought in to direct. He came into this film after making the excellent I, Tonya. His task was to give Cruella the same levels of energy as his biopic. Gillespie does that, Cruella was a kinetic, busy film filled with constant camera movement, a voiceover from Cruella, and a soundtrack that featured The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and Blondie. All of this was done to try and overcome the film’s narrative shortfalls.

Disney recycled a few ideas from their previous films. As already stated the most obvious comparison that can be made was with Maleficent. Both films focus on classic villains, look at the people who wronged them, and how they were framed as the bad guy. Some of the structure was the same, such as the prologue with a voiceover. There were also elements of Cinderella since Cruella focused on fashion, has a voiceover, and explained where the characters’ names came from.

Cruella had a solid cast. Emma Thompson was a scene-stealer like she normally is. She was the highlight as she revelled in the Baroness’ ego. The rest of the cast was a mixed bag. Stone, Fry, and Hauer were decent enough in the roles, even if Hauer has been criticised for his Cockney accent. They did feel like a team and a makeshift family. Wink, the one-eyed chihuahua was adorable. Mark Strong was sadly wasted in his supporting role and Emily Beecham had an embarrassing on-screen death.

John McCrea was a delight as one of Cruella’s entourage. He played Artie, the owner of a vintage fashion store, and was a flamboyant David Bowie type. He dominated scenes he was in and was able to be likeable whilst also being able to stand up against Cruella. Disney has stated that Artie was the first openly gay character in a Disney film and the character was framed to be gay. However, Disney has made these declarations before (i,e, LeFou in Beauty and the Beast), so it becomes meaningless. Plus, Artie wasn’t shown in a relationship so the film can avoid the wrath of censors in more conservativally-minded nations

Cruella was a case of style over substance. It looked great for people into ‘70s fashion and had an awesome soundtrack but the story was an unfocused mess.