Directed by Craig Gillespie
Written by Dana Fox, Tony McNamara
Starring Emma Stone, Emma Thompson, Joel Fry, Paul Walter Hauser
Runtime: 2 hours 14 minutes
Rated PG-13 for some violence and thematic elements
Available in theaters and with Disney+ Premier Access on May 28

by Ryan Silberstein, Managing Editor, The Red Herring

“If she doesn't scare you, no evil thing will”

So goes Mel Levin’s lyrics in one of the catchiest tunes in the Disney songbook. So how does one make a woman famously described as evil incarnate the protagonist of her own story? Even after spending well over two hours seeing Craig Gillespie (I, Tonya) attempt such a feat, I still don’t know. At every turn, they attempt to make Estella/Cruella both sympathetic and dastardly. But by constantly fiddling with the dial, no clear message comes through.

The film opens with the birth of Estella (Cruella is the name of her evil alter ego), already with two-toned black and white hair. Then it spends its sweet time showing us her school years with Anita, the death of her mother (Emily Beecham) at the paws of some mean dalmations, and her meeting Horace and Jasper. While the screenwriting axiom goes “show, don’t tell,” after this and Army of the Dead, it seems like Hollywood has forgotten you don’t have to do either if it isn’t essential to the story. After an extended montage showing Estella, Horace, and Jasper grifting their way into adulthood (and into being played by (Emma Stone, Paul Walter Hauser, and Joel Fry, respectively), Jasper grifts Estella into being a custodian at a posh London department store. After a late night cleaning session turns into Estella making over a shop window, it catches the eye of The Baroness (Emma Thompson), who asks the young girl to come work for her fashion house.

All of the action is underscored by a soundtrack my mom will definitely buy at Target in the next few weeks. Chock full of FM radio classics, it manages to squeeze in Supertramp, ELO, The Clash, Nina Simone, Queen, and Ike and Tina Turner along with covers of other staples. Combined with the screenplay’s need to show us every moment of the characters life and Gillespie’s predilection for montage, the first hour or so is downright exhausting. Occasionally it is entertaining, but it mostly amounts to unneeded setup for the later acts.

The best sequences in the film revolve around the growing mentorship/rivalry between Estella and The Baroness. They are a showcase for the real reason to see this movie: the designs. While the period aspects of the aesthetics are sometimes hard to place, as Cruella draws on everything from couture to punk rock, the theatricality of the costumes and the way they are revealed within the movie’s many montages are exceptional. The duel between Estella/Cruella and The Baroness, playing out at galas and in the pages of fashion magazines, is where it shines, evoking everything from The Hunger Games to The Thomas Crown Affair (the Pierce Brosnan one).

Emma Thompson’s role is clearly patterned after Miranda Priestly–the Anna Wintour stand-in played by Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada–and it is clear that, like Streep, Thompson is relishing the idea of playing an unrepentant character. Oddly, however, her character is far more coherent than Cruella. There is a scene where The Baroness relates over lunch that everything between you and success is an obstacle, and why bother having feelings for obstacles? It’s an awful and selfish worldview, but it provides insight into a more focused version of this story.

For its protagonist, Cruella draws more on Marvel’s Loki–a mischief-making meddler, starved for attention–than it does on, say, Jordan Belfort. They want Cruella to be bad, but not the paragon of evil she was in the animated film or the 1996 version played by Glenn Close. But this misses why we like villains. They are memorable for their garish and exaggerated forms, and the way they can say what they feel without giving a thought to how it impacts others. There’s a bit of wish fulfillment in a good villain story, but Cruella is never allowed indulge in the kind of villainy that would earn her the description: “to see her is to
take a sudden chill.” Sadly, her bark is worse than her bite.