Disney’s track record of their ‘live action remakes’ has been relatively dire ever since the beginning. Even though I have a soft spot for 2010’s Alice in Wonderland, basically every single one of their attempts at translating their animated films to live action has ended in total disaster with all of them completely missing the point of the original film in one way or another. As such I had written off Cruella before I had even seen the trailer, I ignored basically everything about the film in the lead up to release and had no intention of watching it. Why would I want to see One Hundred and One Dalmatians butchered in the same way they did with The Lion King and Mulan? But then I read a couple of reviews from my favourite critics, and they convinced me to give it a go, likening it to a cross between Joker and The Devil Wears Prada, an interesting combination for an extraordinary Disney villainess. So, does Cruella break the mould of drab, soulless, and downright bad Disney remakes? The short answer is yes.
Estella is a troubled child, often getting into fights and insisting on standing apart from the crowd with her eccentric dress sense, but she has dreams of becoming a fashion designer. Following the death of her mother which Estella feels responsible for, she runs away to London and befriends two orphan boys, Horace and Jasper, and enters a life of crime.
Now older, Estella (Emma Stone) lands a job in the fashion industry, a world of cutthroat vanity where only the most beautiful survive; and once she learns of a terrible secret regarding her employer (Emma Thompson), Estella must transform herself into Cruella, a bold and fearless fashion icon to topple the Baroness’ empire and claim the life that was stolen from her.
Estella is a troubled child, often getting into fights and insisting on standing apart from the crowd with her eccentric dress sense, but she has dreams of becoming a fashion designer. Following the death of her mother which Estella feels responsible for, she runs away to London and befriends two orphan boys, Horace and Jasper, and enters a life of crime.
Now older, Estella (Emma Stone) lands a job in the fashion industry, a world of cutthroat vanity where only the most beautiful survive; and once she learns of a terrible secret regarding her employer (Emma Thompson), Estella must transform herself into Cruella, a bold and fearless fashion icon to topple the Baroness’ empire and claim the life that was stolen from her.
I won’t beat around the bush; Cruella is the standard that all Disney live action ‘remakes’ should strive to achieve. By no means is it an incredible film, but I had an excellent time watching it and it blew my expectations out of the water. Part of the reason why it is so good is because Cruella does not remake One Hundred and One Dalmatians, it is an original story that stands apart from the film that inspired it. It has nods to the source material, such as some of the side characters, locations, and lines of dialogue, but it never feels forced or as though it’s pandering to fans of that film. It doesn’t dangle these references in front of you with an ‘oooh, look at this thing you remember’ attitude, instead it incorporates these elements naturally into the story it wants to tell.
Emma Stone is great as Cruella, though it is a different take on the character from what we have seen in either the original animated film, or the Glenn Close iteration of the character in the early 00’s. Cruella in this film is considerably smarter, more sinister, and yet also much more likable. She’s a character you really root for, and she never makes the transition into villainess allowing you to not feel conflicted about your adoration for her. She’s the kind of person we all want to be, she doesn’t take crap from anyone, and she’s a total genius.
But as good as Stone is in her performance of Cruella, it’s the chemistry she has with Thompson’s Baroness that really makes the film special. The scenes where the two are together are among the most thrilling the film has to offer with razor sharp dialogue, wit, and tension. Whilst the story twists regarding the Baroness aren’t original, they still come across as reasonably shocking because of the relationship the two characters build over the course of the film.
Cruella looks and sounds great too with some fantastic costume design and a rocking 70’s punk soundtrack. As good as the soundtrack is, the film does lean on it slightly too hard with some scenes using songs that simply overpower what’s actually happening. This reliance on licensed songs sometimes made the film lose the identity it was trying to create itself by focusing too much on presenting awesome tunes that everybody can bob their heads along to. But the costume design, oh the costume design is sublime. For a film about high fashion, you certainly expect some incredible dresses, but Cruella not only dazzles with its dress sense and period matching attire, but also places the characters ingenuity into the clothes she designs. Nothing is just material, and yet everything can be material.
Emma Stone is great as Cruella, though it is a different take on the character from what we have seen in either the original animated film, or the Glenn Close iteration of the character in the early 00’s. Cruella in this film is considerably smarter, more sinister, and yet also much more likable. She’s a character you really root for, and she never makes the transition into villainess allowing you to not feel conflicted about your adoration for her. She’s the kind of person we all want to be, she doesn’t take crap from anyone, and she’s a total genius.
But as good as Stone is in her performance of Cruella, it’s the chemistry she has with Thompson’s Baroness that really makes the film special. The scenes where the two are together are among the most thrilling the film has to offer with razor sharp dialogue, wit, and tension. Whilst the story twists regarding the Baroness aren’t original, they still come across as reasonably shocking because of the relationship the two characters build over the course of the film.
Cruella looks and sounds great too with some fantastic costume design and a rocking 70’s punk soundtrack. As good as the soundtrack is, the film does lean on it slightly too hard with some scenes using songs that simply overpower what’s actually happening. This reliance on licensed songs sometimes made the film lose the identity it was trying to create itself by focusing too much on presenting awesome tunes that everybody can bob their heads along to. But the costume design, oh the costume design is sublime. For a film about high fashion, you certainly expect some incredible dresses, but Cruella not only dazzles with its dress sense and period matching attire, but also places the characters ingenuity into the clothes she designs. Nothing is just material, and yet everything can be material.
Some comments have been made about the films dark themes and depiction of mental health issues but I personally feel that both of these issues have no real grounding. Cruella is rated a 12 in the UK which matches the kind of maturity seen in Disney & Marvel’s MCU output, but there’s considerably less violence and just more threat. The film does have a muted colour palette that only gives bursts of colour for the spellbinding outfits, but the general tone of the film feels very reminiscent of One Hundred and One Dalmatians. It’s suitable enough for kids and I feel as though they’ve certainly seen worse in recent superhero films.
The comments about the films depiction of multiple personality disorder is also slightly confusing because it’s never actually established that Cruella suffers from that disorder, or any mental health issues. She’s certainly traumatised from her mother dying at such a young age, but Estella was always troubled as a child, her mother even referring to her troublesome antics as being ‘cruel Ella’. It’s only once she is accepted into the kind of society that encourages that kind of behaviour do we see her attitude change and she adopts the name Cruella. A simple reading of the film could see mental health issues at play, but I feel a deeper dive may actually present the reality that Estella was always that way inclined, but she just suppressed it to survive as an orphan, until the day where she could unleash her eccentricity and mean-spirited nature once again and adopt the moniker of Cruella. I fear that the reading of the film, where Cruella suffers from psychological disorders, says more about societies need to place everybody into some kind of category, and because Cruella does all she can to not be categorised she is immediately labelled as someone with mental health issues. Cruella was always insane in the original One Hundred and One Dalmatians films so I won’t rule out mental health problems for the new version of the character, but I want to state that the film never actually makes that assessment of the character, it is audiences who have felt the need to place that assessment onto her.
Cruella surprised me in the best kind of way. I was expecting another lifeless corpse churned out by the Disney machine that was a complete misinterpretation of the original source material. But instead, Cruella stands apart from both what inspired it, and its ‘live action remake’ contemporaries as a film that wants to be bold and daring in ways that modern Disney films often aren’t. I doubt it'll be considered one of Disney's greatest live action films ever, but it's a leap in the right direction considering their recent output.
If you’re yet to venture back to the cinemas in this post-lockdown world, then I feel Cruella is the perfect opportunity for the whole family to do so with guaranteed smiles all round.
The comments about the films depiction of multiple personality disorder is also slightly confusing because it’s never actually established that Cruella suffers from that disorder, or any mental health issues. She’s certainly traumatised from her mother dying at such a young age, but Estella was always troubled as a child, her mother even referring to her troublesome antics as being ‘cruel Ella’. It’s only once she is accepted into the kind of society that encourages that kind of behaviour do we see her attitude change and she adopts the name Cruella. A simple reading of the film could see mental health issues at play, but I feel a deeper dive may actually present the reality that Estella was always that way inclined, but she just suppressed it to survive as an orphan, until the day where she could unleash her eccentricity and mean-spirited nature once again and adopt the moniker of Cruella. I fear that the reading of the film, where Cruella suffers from psychological disorders, says more about societies need to place everybody into some kind of category, and because Cruella does all she can to not be categorised she is immediately labelled as someone with mental health issues. Cruella was always insane in the original One Hundred and One Dalmatians films so I won’t rule out mental health problems for the new version of the character, but I want to state that the film never actually makes that assessment of the character, it is audiences who have felt the need to place that assessment onto her.
Cruella surprised me in the best kind of way. I was expecting another lifeless corpse churned out by the Disney machine that was a complete misinterpretation of the original source material. But instead, Cruella stands apart from both what inspired it, and its ‘live action remake’ contemporaries as a film that wants to be bold and daring in ways that modern Disney films often aren’t. I doubt it'll be considered one of Disney's greatest live action films ever, but it's a leap in the right direction considering their recent output.
If you’re yet to venture back to the cinemas in this post-lockdown world, then I feel Cruella is the perfect opportunity for the whole family to do so with guaranteed smiles all round.