Cruella is Pretty Great, Actually
Cruella. Image courtesy of DIsney.
Cruella is so much better than it has any right to be. It’s astonishing. I am no fan of Disney’s mission to resuscitate old IP and squeeze every last dollar out of it. The Lion King was an abomination. Dumbo was a cruel and lifeless reminder of the futility of existence. The Little Mermaid promises untold horrors when it is finally released. So of course, when one hears that Disney is doing a live action film about Cruella de Vil, the dog-skinning villain from a pretty dated entry in the Disney animation canon, it did not immediately elicit a strong positive reaction.
Most of the chatter I heard about this film was nonplussed. Nobody was terribly keen on a backstory for a one dimensional 1960s cartoon villain, which was surely going to try and humanize her. Anyway, didn’t Glenn Close have the final word on the matter with her portrayal in the live action 1990s versions? Other than money, what possible reason could there be for making this film?
The ironic thing is that there’s actually something kind of liberating about trying to execute an idea that is, on its face, totally unnecessary and utterly ridiculous. Because expectations are low, and because the whole concept is absurd, birthed in the mind of capitalist vultures with no understanding of the human condition, it frees the filmmaker to really go for something outside the box. And that is exactly what they did with Cruella. And, beyond all reason, it worked.
This is similar to how Disney handled the live action remake of Aladdin. Guy Ritchie and Will Smith had a lot of rope to take the film in its own direction and separate it from the source material. The result? A film that was, surprisingly, not garbage. It was actually (and it pains me to admit this) pretty fun. Cruella, and I beg forgiveness for the pun here, adopts an even more devil may care attitude and just plunges headlong into its origin story of a woman loosely based on the Cruella of the previous films but also quite obviously not the same character.
By including references to the source material but charting their own course entirely, Cruella can indulge in this extravaganza of stylish set pieces, music, costumes and camp that washes over you like a tidal wave of sensory experiences. Because the concept is so stupid to begin with, you don’t need to spend a lot of time worrying about crap like character development or plot. This film revels in pure visuals, in a way not too much different from other masterpieces of kinetic motion like Mad Max: Fury Road. From start to finish it’s just there to entertain and dazzle you with dresses made from trash and flaming gowns.
This movie knows exactly what it is, and exactly how absurd the whole charade is, and it turns that to its full advantage, using the freedom of low expectations to make a film that is breezy, not self-serious, fun and visually stunning. The chemistry between leading ladies Emma Stone and Emma Thompson is also a key piece of the glue that keeps this thing together, and they are great fun to watch as they torment one another. Ultimately, all of these pieces come together to make one of the more improbably enjoyable movies to have come out of the Mouse House in quite some time.
