Mark Reviews Movies: CRUELLA

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Review by Mark Dujsik | May 27, 2021

The Cruella of Cruella isn't the Cruella de Vil generations have come to love to hate. That's not necessarily a critique of director Craig Gillespie's origin story of the infamous puppy-snatching villain. It does, though, leave us wondering how the character in this tale will eventually become one who would abduct 99 Dalmatians, with the intention of killing them, skinning them, and turning those hides into a fur coat.

In theory, a sequel would probably answer that question. Then again, after spending so much time getting to know and understand and almost sympathize with this character, would such a sequel be a good idea?

The sequel to this story, in a way, already exists, anyway—twice, actually. The first, of course, is the 1961 animated film One Hundred and One Dalmatians, which was based on Dodie Smith's novel and engrained the idea of Cruella—a rich socialite with a maniacal sense of entitlement—so firmly into the collective conscious. The second was a 1996 live-action remake, called 101 Dalmatians, which more or less showed that a real person (namely Glenn Close) could approximate the cartoonish malevolence of the villain.

Here, screenwriters Dana Fox and Tony McNamara set out to soften the character, giving her a tragic back story, a vengeful motive and a playfully anarchic method of revenge, and even more layers of unfortunate history. By the end, the pieces are basically in place for Cruella, played by Emma Stone, to enact her dog-napping scheme, but the character surely doesn't seem to be in that place. That leaves us wondering what the actual goal of this movie is.

It's missing a step or two, either to explain how this Cruella becomes the one we know or to rationalize the already-known villain's very simple objective into something that fits with this new variation of the character. In other words, a sequel almost seems inevitable—and, whichever route it might take, ill-advised.

As soon as the filmmakers decided to envision a less cruel and more sympathetic version of Cruella, such uncertainty about this story and this character was also inevitable. With that in mind, we can simply chalk up that apparent indecisiveness to—and attempt to dismiss it as—one of the unavoidable consequences of revisionism.

It really doesn't matter if the Cruella here is or becomes the villain we know by the final moments of this movie, because Gillespie and company are telling their own story—inspired by but not exactly beholden to the stories and adaptations and sequels that have come before it. From that perspective, this prequel/re-imagining/reboot/whatever is a stylish, formulaic, and safely rebellious romp, mixing up a caper comedy and a semi-severe revenge story. It's also a bit too obsessed with explaining or referencing what's to come in Cruella's known story.

The plot is a lot. Before she becomes Cruella, the future villain is just Estella. The other name is a nickname given for the young girl's tendency toward bad moods by her mother (played by Emily Beecham), who ends up dead—pushed off a cliff by some Dalmatians—before the end of the prologue. The young, orphaned Estella, dying her half-raven and half-white hair red, grows up and scrapes by as a petty thief in London, guided by and, ten years later, leading fellow thieves Jasper (Joel Fry) and Horace (Paul Walter Hauser)—the so-called "Baduns," who did the actual dog abductions, of the original story/stories.

The former arranges for Estella, an aspiring designer, to get a job at a fancy fashion boutique. Her rebellious attitude and smart design sense catch the attention of the Baroness (Emma Thompson), a world-renowned designer whose demeanor and actions are more in line with the Cruella most of us know (Thompson chews the scenery but with calculated, extended bites). After a series of revelations (All of which are pretty much a given), Estella, taking on the alter ego of Cruella, sets out to destroy the Baroness' reputation, career, and future. She promises not to kill her opponent, unless it comes to it—just as Estella/Cruella jokes about skinning the Baroness' Dalmatians.

Fox and McNamara aren't subtle about their allusions—or much of anything, for that matter. The aesthetics of this story, set in the post-swinging '70s of London, are equal parts haute couture—the Baroness' world of design shops, fashion shows, and a somewhat familiar mansion—and punk rock—Cruella and her gang's grimy hideout, her guerilla theater-like tactics against the Baroness (blacklight graffiti and a dump truck filled with dresses), and her own style (how all that trash becomes an incredibly long train for her gown). It's all excess, from the design, to Gillespie's roaming camera, to Nicolas Karakatsanis' grungy-to-gleaming cinematography, and to the plot itself, which revels in heists and pranks in between all of the explanatory foreshadowing of Cruella's eventual turn.

Stone's performance is notable, not only for her usually sharp comic timing, but also for the distinct physicality she brings to each side of the Estella-Cruella divide (For the latter, she admirably mirrors the off-balanced, sharp angles of the animated character). Despite this and the movie's surplus of style, the Cruella of Cruella—what we're meant to think about her and how we're supposed to feel about who she'll become—remains a bit too much of an open-ended question.

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