The Sunday Mail
Film Review
Tinashe Kusema
CRUELLA de Vil is one of the most memorable characters in the Disney gallery of villains.
It is only fitting that an origins story be made for the fur-loving fashionista.
However, my question is why now?
Why pour so much money — US$200 million to be exact — on a sequel before the movie is released?
It has been a couple of months since the Emma Stone flick “Cruella” was released and I am yet to get answers to any of the above questions.
Disney took a gamble on this one and should count themselves fortunate because the film is surprisingly good.
The US$200 million did not go to waste.
Most of the budget was sunk in eye-catching imagery, extravagant dresses and Stone’s paycheque.
We first meet our protagonist Estella (Billie Gadsdon) as a troublesome child with an eye for fashion in rural England in the 1970s.
Her mother, Catherine (Emily Beecham), fed up with her antics, decides to pull her from school to keep her record clean and move to London.
On the way there, she stops at an upper-class party to ask for financial assistance from a well-to-do friend or relative.
Estella sneaks into the party and unintentionally attracts the attention of the host’s three ferocious Dalmatians.
They chase her outside and push Catherine off a cliff-side balcony to her death.
Orphaned and blaming herself for Catherine’s death, Estella runs away to London and befriends street urchins Jasper and Horace, who take her in.
Ten years later, Estella (now played by Emma Stone) and her friends are now thieves.
She, however, hones her fashion skills by designing their disguises.
For her birthday, Jasper (Joel Fry) and Horace (Paul Walter Hauser) get her an entry-level job at the Liberty department store.
It is there that she attracts the attention of Baroness von Hellman (Emma Thompson), a wealthy and renowned fashion designer, who takes her in and teaches her about the industry.
It is later revealed that their chance meeting was as fate would have it, as the two are more connected than they know.
The more the truth is revealed, the more they clash.
In fact, the Cruella de Vil moniker was inspired by the baroness.
This is closer to spoiler territory as I can get.
Disney does right by casting Emma Stone and Emma Thompson as the film’s leads. Stone does a great job in her performances as Estella and then Cruella de Vil. Emma Thompson is an equally great foil for the protagonist, and it is all about the little nuances with her performance.
The two bring such things as the evil laugh and smile or grin to life.
While the two Oscar greats shine brightly, it would be remiss if I did not mention their supporting cast.
Despite being in the movie for a little under 15 minutes, Billie Gadsdon does enough to be as memorable as a five-year-old Estella.
Fry and Hauser mainly serve as comic relief, much like the two characters do in the animated flick and also do their best to stand-out.
Stone and Hauser had big shoes to fill, as their roles were played by Glen Close and Bob Hoskins in the 1996 “101 Dalmatians” movie.
They knock it out of the park.
Much of Disney’s US$200 million budget was into cinematography, with the film painting quite the picture of London in the 1970s and a very extravagant visual of the fashion world.
All these factors combined make “Cruella” one of this year’s more memorable flicks.
