How did the later thief of 101 Dalmatians get so angry? Disney’s “Cruella” explores the question – as the first major cinema restart after the lockdown.
Disney villains have always been found more interesting than Disney princesses. Nobody knew that better than the animators who fought over them. Cruella de Vil, the unforgettable fur fetishist and dog kidnapper from “101 Dalmatians”, came from – like her predecessor Malefiz from “Sleeping Beauty”, the pencil of the legendary draftsman Marc Davis. Like no one else, the artist, who died in 2000, was able to create a mysterious connection between darkness and ladylike elegance.
Since the Disney group closed its studio for hand animation, it has been the Hollywood divas who have been fighting for the villain roles. In two “Maleficent” films, Angelina already showed Jolie behind the icy mask of the Sleeping Beauty fairy and revealed a surprisingly human face and a romantically broken heart. Glenn Close, on the other hand, as the first real film Cruella in the “Dalmatiner” remake from 1996 and its sequel “102 Dalmatians” had to leave the crucial question open: Are you born so bad? Or, if not, how did this Cruella get on the dog?
Her successor Emma Stone has it better. In the title role of the prequel “Cruella” she is allowed to clarify the question and open up completely new pages for the character. The first, almost to be expected, revelation on the way to her hidden humanity: Like so many Disney characters, she is an orphan. The knowledge of a tragic childhood is of course not enough to elevate the future dog hunter to a heroine. The team of authors Dana Fox and Tony McNamara came up with another coup: Without further ado, they invented an even more villainous villain, the Baroness played by Emma Thompson, a fashion designer celebrated in Swinging London in the sixties.
If the devil wears Prada, she is the devil’s grandmother. Almost an exaggerated double of the known Cruella, she is even more style-conscious and even more unscrupulous. The actual question of this film, “How do you get so angry?”, Of course, only shifts to another level through this character: How do you get so super angry?
On her first appearance, she chases her dogs after the mother of the girl Estella, who later becomes Cruella – and also lets the child believe that it is responsible for her subsequent fatal fall from a castle terrace. The curious episode that follows would have made its own full-length Disney film in the past: The orphan finds shelter in London in a Charles Dickens-like gang of child petty criminals.
Two of her childhood friends will later meet us again as their well-known helpers from the cartoon: The faithfully connected crooks Jasper and Horace are built into amazingly lovable characters by their actors Joel Fry and Paul Walter Hauser.
Ten years after her mother’s death, Estella finds a job as a fashion assistant at the baroness, of all places, and is at lightning speed to her right hand – first promoted, then eyed jealously: director Craig Gillespie obviously knows the film “The Devil Wears Prada”. In the dazzling backdrops of a luxuriant fashion world, the daring narrative finds its way to some extent – but by no means something that even remotely resembles the well-known dog film.
What follows is a baroque spectacle, oscillating between glamor and slapstick, about the rivalry between two creative women; astonishing in the abundance of details, but difficult to bear in the superficiality of a staging that urges a grandiose ensemble to cartoon-like exaggeration.
The more Emma Stone’s character looks into the abysses of her boss’s character, the more unscrupulous she becomes herself. But the insidiousness also stimulates her creativity – and it blossoms in the most original scene of the film: she made a masterful model dress for her boss , but the dazzling decor consists of tens of thousands of cocoons of moths. They slip right on time at a fashion show to satisfy their hunger for the whole collection. While Estella is harmless during the day, at night she becomes Cruella – a rock star of a new generation of designers.
What does all of this tell us about the transformation of the lovable orphan into a she-wolf in Dalmatian fur? More sequels are probably needed to explain how the avenger on her mother’s murderer can also become an animal enemy. This is the curse of franchise fashion: like a potted plant, new offshoots are always branched off from classic films, which are then supposed to lead a life of their own. After all, you can enjoy the stylish flower pot: The equipment (Fiona Crombie) and above all the costume design (Jenny Beavan) are our first favorites for the Oscars 2022.
A footnote in German film history, however, is already certain “Cruella”: Since last Thursday, the film has already been shown in some cinemas as the first restart of the Corona openings. If you don’t want to wait for it, you can also find it – for a hefty surcharge – on the Disney Plus streaming channel.
Cruella. USA 2021. Director: Craig Gillespie. 134 min. In selected cinemas and on Disney Plus.
