REVIEW: ‘Cruella’ Gets Creative With A Surprisingly Pro-Life Message

More than any of the recent Disney live-action remakes, “Cruella” gleefully departs from its source material to take creative risks. As sheer spectacle overlaying a sly rebuke to modern feminist values, it pays off. Though, at times, it’s hard to tell just who this PG-13 movie is for.

It’s too frothy and cartoonish to court the edgy types to whom it pays homage. It’s too subversive for the matinee family crowd. It’s too dark for the under-10 set. But mostly, it is far too pro-life to appeal to the legacy media critics who hold the keys to the Rotten Tomatoes kingdom. (This critic holds a key as well, but can only do so much by herself).

In the midst of one of the few Mouse House retellings not to feature princesses, enchantments, or talking animals of any kind, something magical happens. Through the battle between two fashionistas we see an honest depiction of what women who willingly sacrifice children on the altar of “fabulous” lives and high-powered careers are often really like. And their image in the mirror on the wall is far from appealing.

Crafting an origin story that will transform a villain who would skin puppies into someone marginally sympathetic is a tall order. The screenwriters make the wise decision not to bother forcing this “Cruella” to line up with 1961’s “101 Dalmatians,” and instead create an alternate-reality version of the character. The Cruella-verse.

Orphaned through tragic circumstances that help explain how a dog-lover becomes so averse to white pooches with black spots, young Estella finds herself alone on the streets of London. Before she can say, “consider yourself, one of us,” two urchins by the names of Horace and Jasper scoop her up and initiate her into their thieving gang. A few years later, a grown up Estella (Emma Stone) finds that the satisfaction of a well-executed heist isn’t enough to quell her childhood dreams of designing beautiful clothes. Encouraged by her sidekicks, she determines to scratch, claw, and sashay her way to the top of the fashion heap. Only one woman stands in her way — the queen bee of couture, the Baroness (the always fantastic Emma Thompson).

Set on the cusp of the 1970s punk movement, the film capitalizes on every bit of fun that particular scene in that particular moment has to offer. Like a two-toned Vivienne Westwood, Cruella tears around the streets on a garbage truck, menacing the norms with her outlandish installation art antics.

Despite a few plot holes and short-circuited story-arcs, anyone who has ever lost themselves in an issue of Vogue or Harper’s Bazaar will find the outrageous style of the film impossible to resist. The gowns, hair, and makeup, of course, offer a visual feast, and there’s no question an Oscar nomination for costume design will be coming Disney’s way. But the garage-band soundtrack pumps up the energy and wit throughout — The Stooge’s, “I Wanna Be Your Dog” playing during a fur-coat catwalk is an especially fine moment.

Unlike the dismal “Maleficent,” this isn’t really a story about a baddie who turns out to be a goodie once we understand her trauma. It’s simply a story about an artist coming into her own and the transition from one decade’s style to another’s, from childhood’s sweetness to adolescence’s sneering.

Plenty of parents won’t want their children to absorb what seems to be, on the surface, just another punk rock paean to rebellion. But beneath the MTV pose, “Cruella” does something truly radical—it suggests that tossing away motherhood to pursue some hideous Carrie Bradshaw fantasy makes you a monster.

I didn’t have Cruella on my list of conservative friendly entertainment for the summer of 2021. But with its unflinching depiction of just how cold the sort of women who shrug and say, “take care of it,“ when confronted with an inconvenient life really are, I could have.

The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

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