Cruella (2021)
Directed by Craig Gillespie
In 1970s London amidst the punk rock revolution, a young grifter named Estella is determined to make a name for herself with her designs. She befriends a pair of young thieves who appreciate her appetite for mischief, and together they are able to build a life for themselves on the London streets. One day, Estella’s flair for fashion catches the eye of the Baroness von Hellman, a fashion legend who is devastatingly chic and terrifyingly haute. But their relationship sets in motion a course of events and revelations that will cause Estella to embrace her wicked side and become the raucous, fashionable and revenge-bent Cruella.
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Best of all, she doesn’t ever once try to ape what Glenn Close did the last time Disney felt the need to live-action-fy Cruella de Vil (that’d be in 1996′s 101 Dalmatians, which I guess we all collectively decided to never mention again).
This iteration of the famous Disney villain’s story draws major inspiration from the 1996 live-action 101 Dalmatians starring Glenn Close (who is also an executive producer on Cruella ) and expands on the idea of her being a fashion designer.
Owning the character in a fashion (pun intended) far removed from what Glenn Close so fabulously created in the live action 101 Dalmatians (1996), Stone’s energy is palpable throughout, strutting across (and off) the screen with a devil-may-care attitude that is equally matched by the imposing Thompson who, as conventional her villainess may be, injects enough colour into a single note to paint a canvas the big screen can barely contain.
This live-action Disney production tells the origin story of the infamous Cruella De Vil, the villain of the animated — and live-action remake with Glenn Close — of “101 Dalmatians.”
So for “101 Dalmatians,” I was expecting them to crank out another iteration of the live-action version featuring Glenn Close 25 years ago, putting iconic villainess Cruella de Vil in the driver’s seat in a family-friendly romp.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Well, obviously there’s Maleficent and Maleficent 2 (did anyone bother to see Maleficent 2 ?), but Cruella is mostly Joker crossed with The Devil Wears Prada .
It also brings to mind “All About Eve” and the origins movie “Maleficent.”
In other words, this is not something to compare to the Angelina Jolie interpretation of Maleficent, where it’s made clear that we are witnessing the truth.
Many people will instinctively want to compare this movie to Maleficent, but it's a completely different approach to telling a villain's tale.
Puppies! “Maleficent” juggled similarly tough territory — how to make a woman best known for poisoning actual babies seem sympathetic — and did it well enough to inspire two films about the villain’s secret charms, but Craig Gillespie’s “Cruella” struggles to attain similar success.
What started with Maleficent in 2018, continues with a new tale featuring the puppy killer, Cruella de Vil.
However, the teacher/student dynamic soon turns sour, resulting in a bitter rivalry that echoes All About Eve (1950).
It also brings to mind “All About Eve” and the origins movie “Maleficent.”
In another, better sense, it's a reference to The Devil Wears Prada and All About Eve in its uncompromising excoriation of how powerful women will exploit the labour of other women who work for them in self-defeating, patriarchally-defined cycles.
Cruella limns how Hollywood has learned all the wrong lessons from the 1950 powerhouse film All About Eve.
Estella’s strategy is half All About Eve , half Mordred marching into Camelot to dethrone King Arthur.
Here arrives the most pressing point: In whatever ways Cruella is a wonky origin story for a Disney villain we’ve come to love and fear, the film is more accurately (and quite pleasingly) a Devil Wears Prada -meets- All About Eve redux, with Emma Thompson delivering award-worthy work chewing scenery in the Miranda Priestly role of Baroness.
The other, of course, is Cruella de Vil, played by Emma Stone with enough seething, over the top vengefulness to almost make one forget Glenn Close’s memorable Cruella in “101 Dalmatians” (1996) and “102 Dalmatians” (2000), both live-action sequels to Disney’s beloved 1961 animated classic, which is paid brief homage at the end of the new film.
Cruella , with its shoe-horned attempts at referencing 101 Dalmatians , proves just how thrilling but also limiting the exercise can be.
Opening in the UK and US on May 28, while simultaneously becoming available on Disney+, the film radiates a punk-ish spirit that caters to younger viewers who may not know the live-action 101 Dalmatians films which starred Glenn Close about 25 years ago — to say nothing of the 1961 animated original.
Her take on Cruella de Vil, in Disney’s live-action adaptation of its 1961 animated classic 101 Dalmatians , has, for a long time, felt positively definitive.
As a prequel to the 1961 animated feature One Hundred and One Dalmatians and the 1996 live-action movie 101 Dalmatians , Cruella focuses on the early days of the studio’s most despicable villain outside of Mary Poppins.
Written by Dana Fox and Tony McNamara and set in 1970s London, the live-action comedy is based on the “101 Dalmatians” movies and the Dodie Smith novel that preceded them.
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Estella’s first day on the job is shot as an homage to the Copa tracking shot in “Goodfellas” (1990).
Gillespie, meanwhile, keeps the film looking slick and elegant, including a nod to Goodfellas ’s famous tracking shot through the Copacabana, as the camera winds through the underbelly of London’s Liberty department store.
If the two-guys-and-a-girl antics pack some of the New Wave vitality of “Band of Outsiders,” the serpentine tracking shots and nonstop needle drops often seem to be channeling “Goodfellas.”
(There’s a sensational, “Goodfellas”-esque tracking shot set to “Time of the Season” by the Zombies.)
In the spirit of SNL’s viral Grouch sketch from 2019 – which reconfigured the dumpster-diving Sesame Street muppet Oscar in a faux-gritty anti-hero vein à la Todd Phillip’s Joker – the back-of-the-napkin conceit of Cruella could have made for a very fine 12:05 a.m.
While many who saw the first trailers for the film believed Disney had turned Cruella’s story into something akin to that of Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker , the film is actually more in line with a dark, comic-book iteration of The Devil Wears Prada .
The script’s multiple cooks are evident as the film tries to deliver a villain’s origin story informed by the UK punk scene and seen through the shared lens of both The Devil Wears Prada (2006) and Joker (2019).
But Cruella also wanders off the Disney fairytale compound to crib from more far-flung sources: There’s no escaping the fact that the main character’s descent-into-madness trajectory is informed by 2019’s Joker.
No, there isn’t a scene of Cruella de Vil cruising through Camden Town like Joaquin Phoenix at the end of Joker .
In Joker (2019), Joaquin Phoenix’s character also turned to the dark side, but not once did the movie seem to root for him to succeed.
The other, of course, is Cruella de Vil, played by Emma Stone with enough seething, over the top vengefulness to almost make one forget Glenn Close’s memorable Cruella in “101 Dalmatians” (1996) and “102 Dalmatians” (2000), both live-action sequels to Disney’s beloved 1961 animated classic, which is paid brief homage at the end of the new film.
In all fairness it should be flagged that the tone of Streep’s performance owes a lot to Glenn Close’s portrayal of Cruella in the 1996 remake of 101 Dalmatians and its 2000 sequel 102 Dalmatians .
That in turn spawned “102 Dalmatians,” in 2000.
The wide theatrical and streaming release is a spinoff/prequel to both 1961’s animated “One Hundred and One Dalmatians” and 1996’s live-action “101 Dalmatians” (which had its sequel, “102 Dalmatians,” over twenty years ago).
Close also showed up in the inferior 2000 sequel, 102 Dalmatians .
Writers Dana Fox ("Isn't It Romantic"), Tony McNamara ("The Favourite") and Aline Brosh McKenna ("The Devil Wears Prada") coalesce, bringing essential vibes from former projects into this one’s duality theme.
Estella’s initial excitement about working for the Baroness allows Stone to display the same pure-hearted exuberance that won her an Oscar for La La Land , but as the character begins to understand the cutthroat nature of the Baroness’ world, the actress slowly starts to recall the sly cunning that marked her performance in The Favourite .
Five writers labour to concoct a narrative connecting Estella to Cruella, with nods to "The Devil Wears Prada," "Phantom Thread" and "The Favourite" along the way, while also not straying too far from "101 Dalmations" lore.
Stone, on the other hand, evokes her demented performances from Birdman and The Favourite.
This film, credited to a handful of writers for both script and story (including Tony McNamara of The Favourite, also co-starring Stone), wants very badly to be a Disney version of The Devil Wears Prada with a dash of Phantom Thread (though some of the plot twists feel directly lifted from Joker) thrown in for size.
Fiona Crombie’s credits include “The Favourite,” and here she’s matched and upped her game considerably.
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DP Nicolas Karakatsanis (who has lensed several Michael R. Roskam features) elevates the film beyond mere CGI-frenzy (computer generated canines, including roided out Dalmatians which have Pitbull bodies and would have been more enjoyable realized as Cerberus), for the most part, and Gillespie gives credit where credit is due (a snippet of the throaty Tallulah Bankhead in Hitchcock’s 1944 classic Lifeboat points to where Cruella’s inspiration came from).
Writers Dana Fox ("Isn't It Romantic"), Tony McNamara ("The Favourite") and Aline Brosh McKenna ("The Devil Wears Prada") coalesce, bringing essential vibes from former projects into this one’s duality theme.
Several plot twists later, we find her working for the Baroness (Emma Thompson), the head of a fashion house who seems to be channeling Meryl Streep in “The Devil Wears Prada.”
While many who saw the first trailers for the film believed Disney had turned Cruella’s story into something akin to that of Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker , the film is actually more in line with a dark, comic-book iteration of The Devil Wears Prada .
(The Miranda Priestly vibes are far from coincidental; Aline Brosh McKenna, who receives a story credit here, also wrote “The Devil Wears Prada.”)
Supporting performances by Joel Fry and Paul Walter Houser (who gave a terrific performance for Gillespie in 2017’s I, Tonya ) as Jasper and Horace respectively, Cruella’s accomplices, and Mark Strong as Paul the Valet (in a role strongly reminiscent of Stanley Tucci’s role in 2006’s The Devil Wears Prada ) are excellent.
Stone is terrific in the role, but its Thompson who steals the show, managing to channel both Meryl Streep's Miranda Priestly from The Devil Wears Prada and Daniel Day-Lewis' Reynolds Woodcock from Phantom Thread into a new, deliciously megalomaniacal creation.