Available on Disney+ with Premier Access in most Disney+ markets, at the same time as it is released in select theaters on May 28.
[Rating: Solid Rock Fist Up]
Wait, what? Given the option of just pumping out another live-action/CGI remake or taking a risk with an original story, Disney rolled the dice on something new (-ish)? Really? It’s not supposed to go like this, not when “The Mouse” can just carbon copy a familiar classic and run it through nostalgia-starved audiences like a cultural car wash that spits out $500+ million in worldwide grosses. Cruella specializes in subversion, however, and aside from a fresh, clever take on an old story, the film does the seemingly impossible: it proves that you can teach an old Mouse new tricks.
Framed by narration voiceover, the movie proceeds via the telling of the adult Cruella de Vil (Emma Stone), who was born “Estella” and came out of the womb smart, spunky, rebellious, and achromatic. She explains that her kindly single mother (Emily Beecham) did the best she could to curb the young girl’s more impulsive instincts, but having a funky hair color scheme didn’t do the child any favors on the schoolyard. Hoping for a fresh start, Cruella explains that she and her mother departed the English countryside for the capitol, only for tragedy to strike eń route, leaving the 12-year-old Estella an orphan.
Young Estella falls in with a couple of child thieves right around this time, and the trio grow up to become talented burglars who perform low-level capers in early 1970s London. These two partners, Jasper (Joel Fry) and Horace (Paul Walter Hauser), recognize that their surrogate sister is cut out for more than just pickpocketing, however, and arrange for her to get a job in the fashion industry. It’s here that a chance encounter with world-famous designer The Baroness (Emma Thompson) puts Estella in the fashion fast lane, but also forces her to confront some painful truths about her mother and childhood.
Yeah, yeah, I know: this is the woman who eventually tries to kill and skin puppies. What backstory could be compelling or sympathetic enough to make that eventual conclusion palatable? Well, for starters, just because something was in 101 Dalmatians doesn’t make it true. Did you ever see Cruella kill and skin a dog? No? Way to judge, judgy-pants.
Estella’s path from petty thief to fashion intern to star designer is a compelling and fun one, borrowing heavily from The Devil Wears Prada both for The Baroness’ characterization and Estella’s orbit around this universe. Estella learns how to be cutthroat and hard-hearted to survive, but she also discovers that the mere reputation of malice is as powerful as any devious act. Whether Estella is tipping over into true villainy in her quest to get revenge for childhood wrongs informs the second half of the picture’s thematic journey, and serves as a jumping off point for larger discussions about image, reputation, and what it means to succeed as a woman in a man’s world.
Stone’s work is key to the film’s success, as there’s a tenderness that underwrites the relationship between Jasper, Horace, Estella, and their beloved dogs (she likes hounds – gasp!). This trio’s journey as an adoptive family unit serves as the emotional core of the picture, and along with some clever callbacks to the 1961 original, weaves together the best elements of the old and the new. Stone plays the title role with a crafty balance of pluck and menace befitting a young woman of her tragic background who is struggling with some hard truths and even harder life lessons. Jasper and Horace are integral components in this and serve as a sort of moral baseline for Estella’s journey (due in large part to the dialed-in performances of Hauser and Fry), and help keep the struggle of reality vs. performance in focus.
And then there’s the Baroness, who is categorically evil, yet is rarely wrong, making for a duality that provides wonderful conflict not just in this movie, but for what audiences know about the woman Estella/Cruella will become. The character gets all of the best lines, and Thompson wields each one like a scalpel, cutting people down with a surgical precision rarely equaled on film. Although the entire cast does magnificent work balancing the Disney whimsy of this world with surprisingly adult themes (it is rated PG-13), including Kayvan Novak as Roger and Kirby Howell-Baptiste as Anita, it is Thompson who steals the show.
This is no easy feat, what with the dazzling mix of mod and couture fashions: a centerpiece of Cruella. Fashion is such a fundamental component of the story that anything less than jaw-dropping would be an out-and-out failure, something Oscar winning costume designer Jenny Beavan (Mad Max: Fury Road) made sure to avoid. And while a lack of restraint and budgetary restrictions help the film in this regard, the liberal use of source music has the opposite effect. At times Cruella feels a bit padded out, and with songs by (or covers of) The Beatles, The Clash, The Stooges, Rolling Stones, ELO, Queen, Blondie, Bee Gees, and more littering the soundtrack, it can get a bit dizzying. These music queues work to varying degrees, but come off as somewhat try-hard and don’t add much to the overall texture of the film.
The oversaturation of pop music (and a 134-minute runtime it is partially responsible for) are just a couple of small misses in an otherwise surprising and emotional picture, which should be given as much credit for taking a swing at something original (-ish) as for the final product itself. Which is to say that the decision to pass up an opportunity to print money via a lazy re-shooting of an established classic exhibits a level of trust and artistic audacity that might never have been repeated if Cruella wasn’t so damn good. And it is, along with smart, for it manages to craft a story where the audience is rooting for a woman who once (allegedly) tried to kill and skin puppies. #TeamCruella #CruellaDidNothingWrong
“Obvious Child” is the debut novel of Warren Cantrell, a film and music critic based out of Seattle, Washington. Mr. Cantrell has covered the Sundance and Seattle International Film Festivals, and provides regular dispatches for Scene-Stealers and The Playlist. Warren holds a B.A. and M.A. in History, and his hobbies include bourbon drinking, novel writing, and full-contact kickboxing.
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