Cruella

 1.5/4

Starring: Emma Stone, Emma Thompson, Joel Fry, Paul Walter Hauser, John McCrea, Mark Strong, Emily Beecham

Rated PG-13 for Some Violence and Thematic Elements

"Cruella" is a movie that absolutely no one was asking for.  An "origin story" for Cruella De Vil.  Is the character, deliciously evil that she is, even relevant anymore?  Does anyone remember her?  Or care?  Not really.  Although it is "based off" the book by Dodie Smith, my guess is that Disney found a screenplay that they liked (or could market), changed the names and a few details and slapped the Cruella name on it. It certainly doesn't have anything else right.

Estella (Billie Gadsdon) is a young child who can't catch a break.  Born with black and white hair, she is the target for bullies and gets sole blame when she has the gall to stand up for herself.  Eventually she is expelled and she and her mother Caroline (Beecham) are forced to move.  While trying to get a nest egg from her old employer, Caroline takes a tumble off a cliff.  Estella is now an orphan who blames herself for her mother's death.  She forms a surrogate family including two pickpockets, Horace (Hauser) and Jasper (Fry).  But Estella's dream is to become a fashion designer, and has her sights on getting the attention of The Baroness (Thompson), the egotistical fashion queen.  She gets her chance and all is right with the world, until she finds out the truth about her mother and the connection she has to her new employer.  Now it's all out war.

This film does not get off to a good start.  The set up is overlong and the Dickensian elements don't come across.  Once all the film's cards are revealed, the film gains the bite it so desperately needs.  But there's a problem: how do you make a heroine sympathetic?  Cruella De Vil is a bad to the bone nasty, but she's front and center of the film.  Director Craig Gillespie tries to show both sides of her, but it doesn't work.  Sometimes she's a wronged woman, other times she acts more like Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn.  Her personality changes by the needs of the plot.  Emma Stone is a great actress and conveys both sides of Cruella very well, but not even she can bridge the gap.  In a way, it hurts the film that Stone is so good because it highlights the inability of the screenplay to decide how it wants to present the title character.  Emma Thompson fares better, but she has a more consistent character.

To be fair, the film isn't all bad.  Even in a story this confused, Stone and Thompson are talented and compelling actresses.  Whatever feelings in the audience Cruella is meant to generate in the audience, Stone makes sure they come across.  And Thompson has a ball playing the bitch goddess.  There is also a certain entertainment value in watching the extended war that ensues between the two leads.  It isn't great art, but it is kinda fun.

Ultimately though, the film is undone by the need to transform a villain into a hero.  Without the tie to the Disney villain, this would have been passable entertainment.  But there's no way to imagine that this Cruella would become the lunatic that would kidnap 101 Dalmatian puppies to turn them into a fur coat.  It just doesn't play.  Presumedly that gradual descent into madness will be saved for the already in-development sequel (please no!), so I will have to judge that on its own terms.  But this Cruella and the animated one are not the same character in any way, shape or form.  And that lack of connection kills the movie.