Cruella

Image Credit: Walt Disney Studios

Simon Dillon, 4th Jun 2021
Tags: Life Review Comedy Crime

Although in recent years, Disney has been particularly guilty of uninspired remakes and shameless mining of past glories, Cruella – an origin story for 101 Dalmatians villain Cruella De Vil – is surprisingly good fun. Featuring two of my favourite Emmas on top form, it kept me thoroughly entertained for much of the running time, despite ultimately outstaying its welcome by about twenty minutes.

Unsurprisingly, it transpires that the eponymous dalmatian skin coveting lunatic wasn’t christened Cruella, but Estella. Sunset Boulevard-style narration informing us she is already dead immediately raises intrigue levels. What follows is a brief bout of young Estella (Tipper Seifert-Cleveland) being bullied at school, retaliating, and being expelled. This leads to her mother saying they’ll start afresh in London, where Estella can follow her dream to be a fashion designer.

Estella runs away to London, falls in with thieves Jaspar and Horace.

However, before driving to the capital, they make a pit stop at a big posh house on the edge of a seaside cliff, where her mother says she will ask a mysterious someone for help. Estella is told to remain in the car. She disobeys, leading to a farcical set of circumstances that culminate in dalmatians chasing her, and her mother’s tragic demise as she falls off a cliff. Blaming herself, Estella runs away to London, falls in with thieves Jaspar (Joel Fry) and Horace (Paul Walter Hauser), and spends the next several years honing her criminal skills.

Image Credit: Tenor

Eventually, Estella (Emma Stone) acquires an entry-level position in the prestigious couture emporium Liberty. It doesn’t take long for her talent to catch the eye of Liberty’s owner, the Baroness (Emma Thompson), and soon we’re in hugely entertaining All About Eve by way of The Devil Wears Prada territory. As predictable revelations about the Baroness’s villainy ensue, Estella creates her Cruella alter-ego to upstage her fashion rival, with increasingly dangerous consequences.

Estella has always been told she needs to fit in.

Stone, with a convincing British accent, finds human nuances in Cruella’s persona that don’t detract from her dark villainy in later stories. For one thing, Estella has always been told she needs to fit in, wearing a wig to hide her famous half-white half-black hair. Really Cruella is her true persona, and Estella is the socially acceptable alter-ego. Her rise to the Baroness’s challenge – that she has the talent for her own label, but does she have the killer instinct? – is hugely satisfying to watch.

Emma Thompson is absolutely splendid, stealing every scene in which she appears. Whether reading aloud rave reviews of her work with narcissistic relish, using a straight razor to make dress alterations with no regard for health and safety, or the ongoing acid dismissals of her entourage, Thompson attitude and delivery is spot-on. She is as much mentor as villain to Estella, which given the status of Cruella as unrepentant dark force of diabolical evil in the original story, is entirely appropriate.

Image Credit: Tenor

The 1970s punk era setting is a perfect background for Cruella’s flamboyant theatrics. I, Tonya director Craig Gillespie makes the most of this, channelling Martin Scorsese in pop soundtrack choices and directorial flourishes. One shot entering Liberty from overhead, following customers around the shop floor, and out into behind-the-scenes corridors, before finding Estella scrubbing floors in her new role, is particularly arresting, even if it is enhanced by CGI. It is worth adding special praise for Fiona Crombie’s eye-popping production design, and needless to say, the costumes, courtesy of Jenny Beavan and Tom Davis, look fabulous.

Dovetailing into the 101 Dalmatians narrative.

Roger (Kayvan Novak) and Anita (Kirby Howell-Baptiste) also appear in decent supporting performances, neatly dovetailing into the 101 Dalmatians narrative. Less neat is the screenplay, which contains at least one twist too many for my liking, and begins to feel a little laboured in the final act. It is also rather irksome that Disney wouldn’t relax their blanket no smoking policy for this film, as it meant Emma Stone didn’t get to wield Cruella’s iconic cigarette holder. As Stone astutely pointed out in an interview with the New York Times: “I don’t want to promote smoking, but I’m also not trying to promote skinning puppies.”

Overly censorious nonsense and over-egged screenplays aside, Cruella is still a blast for the most part, and a very entertaining night the cinema.