{"id":8984,"date":"2024-11-27T13:23:42","date_gmt":"2024-11-27T18:23:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=8984"},"modified":"2024-11-27T13:23:42","modified_gmt":"2024-11-27T18:23:42","slug":"cruella","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/11\/27\/cruella\/","title":{"rendered":"Cruella"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Cruella<\/strong> (2021)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Disney\/Comedy-Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 134 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (some violence, thematic elements)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Craig Gillespie\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Dana Fox and Tony McNamara\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Nicholas Britell\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Nicolas Karakatsanis\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: May 28, 2021 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Emma Stone, Emma Thompson, Joel Fry, Paul Walter Hauser, John McCrea, Emily Beecham, Mark Strong, Kayvan Novak, Kirby Howell-Baptiste, Jamie Demetriou, Niamh Lynch, Andrew Leung, Ed Birch, Dylan Lowe.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $86.1M (US)\/$233.5M (World)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

NOTE TO READERS: Although I\u2019m sure we\u2019ll be hearing quite a bit about it in the weeks to come, I\u2019m NOT going to weigh in about the inclusion of an openly gay major character in Cruella<\/strong>, supposedly a first in the history of Disney. I\u2019ll only say I have no problem with it. Let\u2019s move on.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I said it when Maleficent came out and I\u2019ll say it again about Cruella<\/strong>. It\u2019s nice to see that origin stories extend to Disney villains as well as MCU superheroes. As you can surely guess, this one tells the backstory of the dog-hating antagonist of 101 Dalmatians, Cruella de Vil. It follows her from her tragic Dickens-esque childhood to young adulthood where she faces off against the terrible person who ruined her childhood, an evil fashion magnate called \u201cThe Baroness\u201d. Cruella is played by Emma Stone (La La Land) while her nemesis is played by Emma Thompson (Saving Mr. Banks). It\u2019s a lot of fun to watch these two wicked women lock horns. It\u2019s like All About Eve with dogs and a 70s soundtrack.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Cruella de Vil wasn\u2019t always Cruella de Vil. She started life as Estella, a gifted but rebellious child with a talent for designing clothes and a penchant for getting into trouble at school. Her mother (Beecham, Into the Badlands) decides the best thing for both of them is starting over in London. On the way, she stops at a mansion to ask the Baroness for some financial assistance. Estella watches in horror as the Baroness orders her ferocious Dalmatians to push her mother off a cliff. The girl manages to escape and make her way to London where she takes up with two young con artists\/thieves, Horace and Jasper. Oh, so that\u2019s how the three of them met. Okay.<\/p>\n

\u00a0About ten years later, Horace (Hauser, Richard Jewell) and Jasper (Fry, Game of Thrones) surprise Estella on her birthday by getting her a job at a posh department store. After several instances of being dissed by her boss, she takes the initiative and drunkenly redoes a rather dull window display. It catches the eye of the Baroness who immediately hires the former employee to come work for her. No surprise, she\u2019s a bitch to work for. She routinely abuses and insults employees. However, she takes a liking to Estella and makes her a personal assistant. Not long after, Estella discovers that the Baroness is the one who had her mother killed. She decides to take revenge in the guise of Cruella, a flamboyant rival designer who makes a career out of upstaging her sworn enemy at every turn. It leads to a rivalry that surpasses the one between Margo Channing and Eve Harrington.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Okay, Cruella<\/strong> answers a few burning questions about Cruella de Vil- e.g. the two-colored hair, the origin of her name and her car. What it doesn\u2019t do is draw a clear connection to the Cruella de Vil we know from 101 Dalmatians, both the animated and live-action versions. Specifically, it doesn\u2019t tell us why she hates dogs so much. In fact, she doesn\u2019t hate them at all in Cruella<\/strong>. She has one of her own, a stray she adopted as a child. She\u2019s never mean or abusive towards any dog, not even the ones that killed her mom. How did she go from this to the horrible woman who desires a fur coat made of Dalmatians? Inquiring minds want to know.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The most surprising thing about Cruella<\/strong> is how campy it is. I\u2019ve already mentioned the similarity to All About Eve and how fun it is to watch the two Emmas to butt heads with each other. Both of them tackle their roles with great relish. When she\u2019s in Cruella mode, Stone proves she can tear up the scenery with the best of them. She even manages to keep up with her distinguished co-star, an actress equally at home doing Shakespeare and Disney silliness. I\u2019d also like to give serious props to John McCrea (Everybody\u2019s Talking About Jamie) who plays Artie, an ally of Cruella\u2019s who runs a vintage clothing shop. He\u2019s the openly gay character I mentioned earlier. When he\u2019s on-screen, he\u2019s the life of the party. He does a fun rendition of The Stooges\u2019 \u201cI Wanna Be Your Dog\u201d. Hauser and Fry are amusing as Cruella\u2019s dim associates.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I LOVE that Cruella<\/strong> is set in the 60s and 70s. Such a setting means a great soundtrack filled with great oldies like \u201cFive to One\u201d (The Doors), \u201cThese Boots Are Made for Walking\u201d (Nancy Sinatra), \u201cHush\u201d (Deep Purple), \u201cCar Wash\u201d (Rose Royce) and \u201cSympathy for the Devil\u201d (The Rolling Stones). It also means cool vintage sets, clothing and cars. Director Craig Gillespie (I, Tonya) has an amazing eye for period detail as well as a dark sense of humor. That last one is especially important when trying to find the good side of a Disney villain. I can\u2019t say that Cruella<\/strong> makes us understand her character any better, but we come to love her style. It\u2019s a tasty blend of dark humor and camp which makes me wonder if Gillespie had kids in mind when making the film. All I know is that I enjoyed it.\"\"<\/p>\n

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Cruella (2021)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Disney\/Comedy-Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 134 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (some violence, thematic elements)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Craig Gillespie\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Dana Fox and Tony McNamara\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Nicholas Britell\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Nicolas Karakatsanis\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: May 28, 2021 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Emma Stone, Emma Thompson, Joel Fry, Paul Walter Hauser, John McCrea, Emily Beecham, Mark Strong, Kayvan Novak, Kirby Howell-Baptiste, Jamie Demetriou, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9339,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comedies"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Cruella-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8984"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8984\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9341,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8984\/revisions\/9341"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}