RAFFISH ROMP:
The Joyous, Outrageous Confidence of Cruella
Cruella rebels against the maxim that socially political art must be sobering. And why not? Isn't commentary more fun when it's mad, bad and wickedly dangerous?
Cruella is not a new film. It treads the profitably well-worn Hollywood path of sprinkling sympathy on the devil. The Joker, Hannibal, Maleficent; at this rate, Jar Jar Binks could have his own trilogy. 1961’s 101 Dalmatians proudly proclaimed of Cruella de Vil that, “If she doesn’t scare you, no evil thing will.” She’s witheringly cruel, achingly narcissistic and her fashion sense screams failed 20s showgirl. We’d hate her even if she didn’t want to skin puppies.
But Cruella is also new. It delights in its irreverence, unabashedly showing off a story that doesn’t commend villainy or even overtly plead for sympathy. Rather, quite simply, it asks whether or not conforming to authority, its structures and its figures, and dampening your own self is worth the depression. It answers as well – it isn’t. It’s bloody, wicked fun to just let go. It’s bloody, wicked fun to be bold, daring and irreverent. It’s bloody, wicked fun to be yourself.
The battle of the two Emmas essays this brilliantly. Dame Emma Thompson’s Baroness is a snarkily but concretely forged identity, olive-popping, martini-drinking, cloth-ripping and soul-destroying the fashion world to her fashionable will. Emma Stone’s Cruella, conversely, is at the start of her journey to a resolute identity. Her bathroom-cleaning subservience, her punk-red colouring of her singular and her euphoric graffiti-led transition into her original, stridently punk Cruella self is the most vicarious of pleasures.
Ultimately, and evidently, this is not a movie about villainy. It is a movie about the culling of the crutches of conformity. It is about finding one’s own identity and then being confident enough to inhabit it completely. And it is about not being cowed by a palpable identity, but rather being inspired by it and, if push comes to an unavoidable shove, razing it.
Of course the fashion and the music are raunchy and rebellious. From a military punk gown and The Zombies to a dress made of garbage and The Doors, with a glam rock dose of Ike and Tina Turner to boot, the 70s are as much in the lead as either of the Emmas. Punk was acutely post-modern in its disregard of anything established and the movie’s decorative accoutrements do this attitude justice. Anarchy in the U.K. indeed.
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Which is why it is confusing why Cruella, while still being marvelled at by the masses, is being panned by the highbrow critique. Roger Ebert bemoans this apparently blatant commercial grab by Disney, criticising the feebleness of Cruella’s hatred for Dalmatians. It never, allegedly disappointingly, “embraces darkness in the way it threatens to.” Cruella, it seems, is at fault for not being Arthur Fleck. Vulture goes a step further, calling out the movie for being both an irresponsible celebration of white woman-centric feminism, and the eponymous character’s subsuming into it, and a misogynist celebration of the madwoman trope. More Bertha Mason than glass-ceiling cracking fashionista.
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Yes, it could probably lose 10 minutes and, yes, sometimes the supporting characters melt into the background. But Cruella suffers from illnesses not of its own making. It is stylish. It is an achingly stylish movie, one of those that will spawn a legion of fans dressed in instantly identifiable costumes posing and quipping in front of mirrors, Jim Morrison and Ozzy Osbourne resplendent henchmen. Each costume, each set design and each song choice fits the demands of the story perfectly. But, as The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and Tenet can attest to, it is sinful for a movie to be simply stylish, to celebrate style, for style to be substance. Roger Ebert, and particularly Vulture, want a different movie.
They want a dark, gritty movie that puts the struggle for the good cause of feminism front and centre, and clearly depicts the good as good and the bad as bad. But they also want Cruella to be bad, decrying the sin that Cruella is someone to emulate rather than exorcise.
What this conflict of want in a movie results in is a movie that will never be good enough. And, darling, this is just splendid. Cruella does not have to be a sobering examination of the worst of the gender conflict. It also does not have to be ashamed of painting the world as it really is, grey and conflicted, rather than the black and white it rarely is.
Cruella is fun and stylish. It speaks not to a particular audience or a particular harsh politically correct reality, but to a universal truth – that the struggle for identity is tough, whether you’re 16 or 36. But it’s joyous, outrageous fun, darling.
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