Review: Cruella (Craig Gillespie, 2021)

“Raising a genius…does come with its challenges” - Cruella deVil (Emma Stone)

Fig. 1 - Cruella (Craig Gillespie, 2021). — **Fig. 1 - *Cruella* (Craig Gillespie, 2021).**

I’m going to say straight off: I thoroughly enjoyed Cruella (Craig Gillespie, 2021) and I think you will, too. A prequel to One-Hundred-and-One Dalmatians (Clyde Geronimi, Hamilton Luske & Wolfgang Reitherman, 1961) and a re-framing (sort of; more on that shortly) of the beloved Disney villain Cruella deVil, Cruella purportedly tells the story of how the great enemy of dalmatians everywhere became a crazed villain (Fig. 1). Except…while, yes, Cruella tells the story of Cruella’s rise, in fact it leaves a lot of unanswered questions when it comes to explaining how Cruella got from aspiring fashion designer to would-be puppy killer.

Following the trend of films like Maleficent (Robert Stromberg, 2014) rather than the remakes such as Beauty and the Beast (Condon, 2017), Cruella attempts to show that, rather than being some obsessive, one-dimensional baddie, the anti-heroine might have been a happy, successful person – and in Cruella’s case, even a thoroughly respectable dog owner – but life chewed her up, spit her out, and we ended up with someone whose justifiable anger led her to act in unjustifiable ways and lash out at the innocent rather than the guilty. To a degree, that’s exactly what we get with Cruella. The film, which starts (literally, but briefly) with her birth, tells us the tale of young Estella (Fig. 2). Born with half-black, half-white hair (yep, that’s her natural ‘do), a rebellious streak, and a genius for fashion design, Estella is raised by a loving and kind single mother, Catherine (Emily Beecham), who loves (and is loved by) her daughter and seeks the best for her, working hard to bring Estella up to be good and kind. In fact, it is Catherine who inadvertently bestows upon Estella the alter-ego of Cruella when, after a very young Estella makes a cutting remark, Catherine chastises her that her name is Estella, not Cruella, implying that she should be nicer to others. Shortly afterward (indeed, this part of Estella’s childhood is told in something akin to an extended montage), we see Estella (played at this stage by Tipper Seifert-Cleveland) on her first day of school, with Catherine asking her, “What do you say to Cruella when she tries to get the better of you?” To this, Estella replies promptly and primly: “Thank you for coming, but you may go now.” Unfortunately, apart from meeting and making friends with Anita Darling (future photographic journalist and owner of Perdita, played later in the film by Kirby Howell-Baptiste) and adopting an abandoned puppy whom she names Buddy (and who stays with her throughout the film), Estella’s school days are a bust, and she is plagued by boys who bully her and a headmaster who hates her. Indeed, things go so badly at school for Estella that Catherine, to save Estella from being expelled, withdraws her from school, and they set off for London. Unfortunately, Catherine says they need to stop and see a friend to ask for some help in starting their new life, and this is when the inciting incident occurs: after a brief series of mishaps, Estella is chased by a trio of angry dalmatians who then leap over her and – as Estella watches in horror – knock Catherine over a cliff, where she falls to her death. Estella blames herself, as the dogs had been chasing her, and she runs away by jumping into a passing lorry.

Estella and Buddy end up in Regents Park (a central part of the future dalmatians’ story), where they’re found by two young boys, Jasper and Horace, who are orphans living in the remains of a (presumably) bombed-out building and providing for themselves by begging, pick-pocketing, and general thievery. When a policeman catches the boys at their work, they flee, and Estella (with Buddy) follows them home. Feeling sorry for her upon learning that she’s just been orphaned, they invite Estella to join their gang. That she has become a great asset to them is made apparent when we see a montage of the trio, by this stage young adults, relying upon the costumes Estella (henceforth portrayed by Emma Stone) designs and makes for them so that they can blend in and steal in a variety of settings. Though Estella seems resigned to a life in which she has been forced to abandon her hopes and dreams, Jasper (Joel Fry) – who seems to be a little bit in love with her – notices the wistful way that she looks at advertisements for high fashion houses (in particular those advertising the designs of The Baroness, played by Emma Thompson [Fig. 3]). He gets her a job at Liberty (as a cleaner, as it turns out, and with a boss not unlike her old headmaster), but – hugely talented and ambitious, as well as lucky – Estella manages to get herself noticed by, and then hired by, the Baroness as a designer. It is during her time at the Baroness’ fashion house that Estella realises that it was the Baroness – not Estella – was responsible for Katherine’s death. It is at this point that Estella – in the guise of her alter-ego, Cruella – begins a long and complicated plan of revenge. The remainder of the film, which shows Cruella’s plans come to fruition, likewise shows us how the Cruella persona finally takes over completely from Estella, transforming her into something of the villain we met in the 1961 film (and, in some ways, in the 1956 novel by Dodie Smith; saying that, this film is much more connected to the Disney film than to Smith’s novel) (Fig. 4).

The trope that Cruella is Estella’s shadow self is an important theme throughout the film. This is particularly true once Estella, in the early phase of her revenge plans for Catherine’s murder, announces to Horace and Jasper that, “Cruella was in a box a long time. Now Estella can be the one who makes guest appearances.” And yet, for all that we are supposedly learning how Estella became Cruella, and how Cruella became the villain, we are never shown a smoking gun that explains fully the character we meet in the 1961 animated feature (let alone the 1996 and 2000 live-action films starring Glenn Close, who served as an executive producer for Cruella). At one stage, having kidnapped The Baroness’ dalmatians (one of them has swallowed a necklace that Cruella was given and wants back, so she’s waiting for one of the dogs to…pass it), Cruella appears in a fashion show wearing a coat that seems to be made of dalmatian fur, leading the Baroness to rage, “She killed my dogs. And made a coat.” But we learn soon after that this is not the case; all three dalmatians are alive and well, and even happy in their new life with Cruella, Jasper, Horace (Paul Walter Hauser), Buddy, and Wink (Horace’s dog). Not only are they alive throughout the film, but one of them, it is implied by the mid-credits scene, gives birth to a litter of puppies. Even after the Baroness is framed for Estella’s murder (on the same cliff where Catherine was killed; Cruella survives the fall in a skirt that turns into a parachute) and (through a series of machinations) Cruella inherits The Baroness’ estate, all five dogs, Cruella, Jasper, Horace, and Cruella’s friend and fellow fashionista/trouble-maker, Artie (John McCrea), all return to Hellman Hall (which Cruella renames Hell Hall) to begin a new chapter of their lives.

**Fig. 5 - Cruella and the dalmatians.**

But…while Cruella tells us the story of how Cruella deVil came to be, and how she came to live at Hell Hall…we never actually learn how she became so deranged that she would want to kill ninety-nine dalmatian puppies to make a series of coats (we know from the 1961 film that she plans to let them grow big enough to make a fairly large quantity of coats because, when she orders Horace and Jasper to kill the puppies, she does so knowing that she’ll have to settle for the no more than six coats they’ll be able to make from such small dogs). Buddy is devoted to her throughout the film, and she to him, and she and Wink are likewise fond of one another as part of their makeshift little family of orphans. In her final confrontation with The Baroness, the dalmatians even demonstrate in no uncertain terms that their loyalty is now to Cruella (Fig. 5). Never is she cruel or violent toward any dogs (or other animals); in fact, she is very good with (and to) them. So how we get from the 2021 prequel/reframing to the 1961 animated film…that’s never really explained. We see Roger and Anita given Pongo and Perdita (respectively) in the mid-credits scene, but that, along with the house being renamed Hell Hall and the establishment of Cruella as the dominant personality that finally lays Estella to rest forever, are the only things that could be said to lead into One-Hundred-and-One Dalmatians. Given Cruella’s designation as a prequel, this means that there is something of a major gap in the character’s arch. Whether this means that we should be expecting a sequel to Cruella that will fill in those gaps…that’s anyone’s guess. But it does strike as an unusually substantial omission for the plot of the film, let alone for Cruella’s character development, and it seems a sequel to the prequel would be unlikely to resolve the issue.

Despite this, Cruella is a fun, visually-stunning, well-acted film about a group of compelling characters (and Stone does a fabulous job in her role, as does Thompson as the Baroness; not to spoil anything, but it’s wonderfully fitting that the lead actresses share the same first name). It tells a story that keeps the audience well-entertained throughout, and has an amazing soundtrack that is utilized perfectly (even if, on occasion, it’s a tad on the nose, such as when, in the final scene, as Cruella and co. enter Hell Hall, the Rolling Stones’ Sympathy for the Devil begins playing). In short, Cruella, though not without faults, is a fun film with more than enough psychological depth to be interesting to those who look for a bit more in their films.

Rated 12A in the UK, PG-13 in the US, and at a similar level in most other countries where it’s been released (it does have a fair bit of violence/implied violence, and not all of it cartoonish), Cruella is available in cinemas and as a Premium Access film on Disney+ (US$29.99, UK£19.99).

**Article published: June 4, 2021**

Biography

Dr. Amy M. Davis is a lecturer in Film Studies/Screen at the University of Hull. She specialises in the history of all things Disney, as well as American Animation History. She is the author of Good Girls & Wicked Witches: Women in Disney’s Feature Animation (John Libbey & Co., 2006) and Handsome Heroes & Vile Villains: Men in Disney’s Feature Animation (John Libbey, 2013), and is the editor of Discussing Disney (John Libbey Publishing, 2019). She has published numerous academic & journalistic articles on Disney, including “The ‘Dark Prince’ and Dream Women: Walt Disney and Mid-Twentieth Century American Feminism” (HJFRT, 2005). She appears frequently on various podcasts and radio programmes, and is (rightly) known for knowing/thinking more about Disney than is probably healthy (but does think about other subjects, too, now and then). She is on the editorial board of animation: an interdisciplinary journal, and is the Film & TV editor for Fantasy-Animation.org.