My Cruella Thoughts
Yeah, I saw the Cruella movie, and as someone who once was quite the Cruella fan, I had few opinions I wanted to share. These opinions do contain spoilers, so if you’re planning to see the movie and want to be surprised by everything, I won’t stop you, you can come back here later.
‘Cruella’ is a movie clearly made by talented people (director Craig Gillespie also made ‘I, Tonya,’ one of my favorites from 2017) who could have made something much, much better, had they not all winked at one another, taken a Disney paycheck and said to themselves “I guess we’ll just do the best we can with the Cruella origin story.”
This is a showy movie (at it’s best in the performances; obviously Emma Stone and Emma Thompson are having a good time, which in moments is infectious). But all that style only goes so far before you have to, you know, make an original movie. Homages to older, better movies can be nice, but if that’s all you’re offering up we’re simply going to wish we were watching those movies instead.
Speaking of style/visual flourishes I don’t think I’ve been very impressed with the whole impossible shot technique of taking the audience through windows since ‘The Prisoner of Azkaban.’ It was pretty cool then but we’re used to it now, so I wouldn’t mind if we let that trick go for a bit. (You could even throw in extra story instead!)
The opening flashback which presents the idea that Cruella’s mother was murdered by Dalmatians was perhaps the only time I laughed out loud. And if this had been an absurd comedy about a mean cat lady constantly at odds with aggressive canines, eventually driven to the insane point of the whole puppy coat business, well, I’d just about be onboard for that take. Alas, this story is made more complicated, and it is eventually revealed that Emma Thompson’s evil baroness character sicced her dogs on this poor woman, and, drumroll… is Estella/Cruella’s true mother!
Look, I’m sure the whole mother/father twist had been done plenty of times before ‘The Empire Strikes Back,’ but after you get one of the iconic film scenes of all time from it, let’s all agree to give it a rest for a while. When John Carpenter was having writer’s block on how to even begin a sequel to ‘Halloween,’ one night circa 40 years ago he sat down with a six pack of beer and forced himself to write a complete screenplay. Buzzed and tired, he later admitted his thought process was about as simple as “everyone liked the Darth Vader twist, so what if I made Michael Myers Laurie Strode’s brother,” which he later regretted. I’m just saying, if a guy with that ego can say this was a dumb idea, if a familial relation twist is absolutely necessary in your movie, fine, just don’t try to carry all your drama with that information.
One of the things people seem to really like about this movie is the soundtrack. Yes, the music is good, but I wish we heard more of the Nicholas Britell score and less of the same dozen or so pop songs we hear in every movie taking place around fifty years ago. You know how when they make period pieces guys like Tarantino, Scorsese and the Coen Brothers dig a little deeper and find some good songs people listened to in those eras that aren’t still played on the radio every day today? Yeah, try to be more like those guys. I do appreciate that ‘Cruella’ introduced me to Tina Turner’s “Whole Lotta Love” cover (it’s a pretty sweet track) but to the same movie I must also say I could very happily live the rest of my life and never hear “Sympathy for the Devil” in another film or TV show again. I don’t care how ironic or literal it’s meant to come off. We’ve been there before. It’s over. Just stop it.
I can accept the whole “Clark Kent wears glasses”-ness of (practically) no one recognizing Emma Stone with different hair, makeup and clothes — but if we’re really to believe Emma Thompson’s Baroness as the ultimate boss from Hell (she stops short of sexual harassment, though attempted murder isn’t as big a deal) can we really believe she wouldn’t require her number one designer, protégée, and the woman who seems to be quickly assuming all duties from her personal assistant to be present at these “important” fashion events at which the flashier Cruella keeps upstaging her? The rest of her team are always around her on these evenings. This one’s a real big leap for me.
We’re told Mark Strong, assistant and valet to an evil woman, suddenly grew a conscience 20-something years ago when Cruella was born, objecting to the idea of a little baby murder. Okay, so why then does he continue to work for this villain for decades? The Baroness admits to Cruella she’s killed too many people (specifically mothers, yikes!) to remember, so was it just babies that are a dealbreaker to Mark Strong? Did he somehow know the daughter he’d saved would someday come back for the kingdom and so just decided to patiently wait for that to happen so he could help out as an inside man? Seriously, what was his character’s deal?
And can anyone explain to me why this movie was PG-13? There’s no swearing (I believe that’s an actual rule for movies released under the Disney banner) and while there’s some nasty things that are implied, we don’t see much violence/abuse, so none of that’s really new territory for kids movies. I’m guessing Disney asked for the rating, thinking it would attract more teens than the families it turned away, and the MPAA (which, I’ll remind you, is a weird organization with out many discernible rules) said “sure, we guess it’s dark enough for that.”) I know it really needn’t, but that kind of thing bothers me.
Finally, I’m aware that it’s inherently cruel to use certain animals, like chimpanzees, in movies. But not dogs. I mean come on, in a movie that’s (kind of) about them, in which (in this one) they don’t talk, you’re telling me we had to have CG dogs the entire time? I say that’s pretty lame, and (obviously) short of any dangerous stunts, let’s get real dogs back in movies please. We’ve already domesticated them, it’s not mean to train them.
That’s ‘Cruella,’ a 2 1/4-hour movie that’s not really for kids, and certainly not for adults, about getting you to sympathize with a puppy murderer. No, you’re right, I guess she doesn’t actually plot to kill puppies in this movie. But then that begs the question, is this really Cruella? Cause when I was a very young child I loved Cruella for her sweet style, her wicked ride, and yes, because she was fucking evil and didn’t apologize for it. The irony is that, live-action, PG-13 and all, 2021’s Cruella is ultimately a toothless affair that fails to be as bold and edgy as the classic animated villain we met 60 years ago.
