REVIEW #82 Cruella (2021)

Cruella, directed by Craig Gillespie, is a film exploring the origins of the famous Disney villain Cruella Devil. Estella a young orphaned girl finds herself alone in London when she meets a pair of thieves who soon become her new family. As they try to make a life for themselves on the streets of London, aspiring fashion designer Estella is noticed by Baroness Von Hellman for her talents and soon enough Estella’s past starts to get unveiled. 

CAST & THE ACTING 

Emma Stone leads the cast as Estella and she does well, convincingly portraying a young Cruella on the rise. Some moments did come across rather cringeworthy but I do believe that was down to the poor writing/dialogue in the film and not Stones performance. Emma has to play two characters, Estella and Cruella and there is a slight distinction between the two so I suppose Emma Stone was effective there but I just felt like that split personality approach wasn’t needed and I will explain why in the next section. However Cruella is the more mischievous and troublesome persona that Estella transforms into in order to leave her stamp on the fashion world, meanwhile plotting revenge against the evil Baroness. Emma Thompson plays the Baroness and it was a pretty average performance, yes she does play the narcissist well but I don’t think it was a character that required a lot of acting talent to portray, so I believe she was rather wasted in that role. The other main cast members include Mark Strong as the baroness’ right hand man and then Joel Fry and Paul Walter Hauser as Jasper and Horace who were meant to inject the comedy into the film but it was very hit and miss.

PLOT & THE STORYLINE 

The storyline is probably the weakest element of the film in my opinion, it begins with Estella as a young ambitious girl but also very mischievous, you could say a young Cruella. After her mother dies, she is orphaned on the streets of London and becomes friends with two thieves and together they grow up trying to make a life for themselves. Desperate to get into Fashion, Estella takes a job as a cleaner at a Fashion retailer where she is noticed by the Baroness (the owner) for her talents. However after Estella unveils the truth about her past and the Baroness she transforms into Cruella to take her down. 

This is where I take issue with the plot because they make it this big thing where she now has a split personality of sorts but really Cruella is exactly how Estella was growing up and even the adult version of Estella isn’t far off, so I don’t think that approach was needed at all. There was a nice twist towards the end which made the film a little more interesting but that was ruined by the awful plan that followed. I won’t ruin it but it involves a parachute and Estella suddenly becoming a professional skydiver and it’s absolutely ridiculous!  There was just so many moments that didn’t make much sense, I know it’s a Disney, family film but it’s meant to be realistic given it’s just an origins film about a villain fashion designer. The comedy was very hit and miss and the character Horace turned out to be more of a parody then anything else. This was also the case for the police in the film, they were made to look absolutely useless! There were aspects that I liked, the stunts that Cruella pulled to make a stamp on the fashion world were very creative and the character herself did match up quite well to the original version.  

CINEMATOGRAPHY & SPECIAL EFFECTS 

I think the director Craig Gillespie and the cinematographer Nicolas Karakatsanis done really well actually constructing the film. There were a lot of scenes that looked great and were well thought out. One scene in particular is when Cruella is preparing for her big finale towards the end of the film and the news articles and headlines about her appeared in the background of the scene, whilst the camera flowed round them all working. Although I haven’t made it sound too good there, it did look great and it blended in to the scene really well. The costume design and props also help set the time period of 1970’s London and helped provide some necessary realism because there are a lot of aspects of the film that just seemed too silly for my liking. There wasn’t many scenes with special effects but what was used was kept nice and subtle which I appreciated. I would definitely say this category is where the film performed best.

OVERALL (5/10)

I do feel like this film wasn’t really needed and Disney have just tried to throw any sort of plot together in order to pump a film out. I think Emma Stone does well as Cruella but was let down by the writing. Emma Thompson’s character the Baroness almost felt like a pantomime villain which wasted her talents and the other cast members attempts at injecting comedy into the film I felt were very hit and miss. For an origins film about a villain fashion designer there were so many moments that were not realistic at all and I really couldn’t believe the ending, the parachute scene was ridiculous! That being said the cinematography was actually really good and I appreciated how the scenes were pieced together. I think with better writing this film would have been significantly better but unfortunately it missed the mark. 

Thanks for reading.

Callan