Cruella

Coming in at a little over two hours, Craig Gillespie's "Cruella" is a slightly bloated yet entertaining romp that will surely be an awards contender in the design and costume categories. "Cruella" continues Disney's new objective to go back into their archives and tell the origin stories of some of their most famous villains. So in other words, this film never really feels necessary but is a fun time nonetheless due to Emma Stone and Emma Thompson's coo coo bananas performances!

Emma Stone portrays Estella as an orphan who hustles and steals for survival. How she got there is explored in the early scenes where her mother tries to move to London to provide a better life for Estella who is regularly bullied by all of the students except for Anita (adult version played by Kirby Howell-Baptiste of "The Good Place"). After some unfortunate events, which also give a hint of Cruella's future hatred of dalmations, Estella finds herself on the streets of London homeless and hungry. This is where she befriends her boofish crew of Jasper (Joel Fry) and Horace (played by the always hilarious Paul Walter Hauser) who in their youth were just getting started with their careers in petty crime. While the cartoon version of Jasper was a bumbling alcoholic, Joel Fry plays the character in a more nuanced, self-aware way that I appreciated. However the sympathetic portrayals of Jasper and even Estella to an extent will make the pending transition for the recently confirmed sequel more drastic and out of tune with how they established the characters in this film.

Estella, through the help of Jasper, is hired as an intern for revered stylist Baroness von Hellman to be a designer. This introduces us into Gillespie's wild world of London fashion that is often visually mesmerizing. This is accompanied with fantastic costume and makeup designs for Estella's designs and later her own personal wardrobe for when she declares war against the Baroness after discovering a connection between the Baroness and her deceased mother. Estella then develops the persona of Cruella and slowly begins descending into madness, which with her expressive eyes and acting chops, Stone makes incredibly tragic.

While I spent many moments during my viewing asking aloud "Who is this movie for?" I couldn't deny that I was greatly enjoying the performances, costumes, set design and the punk rock soundtrack. Some creative choices left me confused such as the fact that Mark Strong's (Kingsmen series) character John never ages despite being both in the prologue scenes and later appearing in the present assisting the Baroness and eventually Cruella as well once our key plot twist is revealed. The plot twist also had me scratching my head because I can see how it made sense when reading the script but the execution of it just adds another level of insanity to the film that takes it far beyond typical Disney fare and not in the best way. I definitely don't envy the marketing team that had to somehow make this tonally dark and gothic film seem appealing to young children.

This actually might have been a better film if they weren't saddled with the initial Disney creation and instead had gone in a more original direction. But with the obvious set-up at the end for a sequel and the recent announcement of a follow-up going into pre production, it doesn't sound like Disney is letting up on these villain origin stories any time soon. Nonetheless, I cannot deny that I was entertained throughout this entire film.

Large

-Brandon Collins