Emma Stone stars as the proto-villian, who here is given a Joker-esque origin story.
The issue with taking a quintessentially evil character and explaining the how’s and why’s is a risk. Especially with an iconic baddie such as Cruella De Vil.
In this repositioning, Cruella has a severe case of identity crisis.
The antagonist in her life happens to be the Baroness (Emma Thompson), head of a huge fashion empire. So far so The Devil Wears Mation, but the good versus evil relationship between the two characters sets up the entire arc that culminates in Cruella’s evil nature.
Estella (as she is originally known) runs away in London following the suspicious death of down at heel mother. Falling in with a pair of thieves: pickpockets and eventual henchmen Horace (Paul Walter Hauser) and Jasper (Joel Fry), Stone’s Cruella winds pop working at the awful Barroness’ fashion house, and it is here that her black and white haired alter-ego is born.
Though the themes are dark, this is still a kids film at heart and one that prefers to avoid directly addressing schizophrenia and instead aims for positioning Cruella as cult fashion icon, birthing punk and taking the world by storm.
The ever-reliable Stone is great value for money* in a role that is playful and dangerous, there’s none of the pantomime villain of Glenn Close hammy portrayal.
*The crime-caper has not been met with the fanfare expected of a new Disney film, however, and is being reivew-bombed by those baulking at having to fork out nearly 20eur for premium access via a streaming site that already costs updward of 10eur per month.
Disney has always been clear on this direction, those who want to go the cinema can and those that want to watch from home as soon as possible can also do so...it is not unreasonable to find that the day one stream is near the price of a couple’s visit to the flea pit.
That said, Cruella will be on the regular Disney library from end of July.
Cruella is available to stream now on Disney+ Premium Access and is due for release at Kinepolis from 9 June.
Click below poster for full details.
