“Baby’s first movie. We’ll see how it affects them later.” That was how this first movie within four walls in over a year started. We’re expecting a humanoid. Probably worth going through some parenting movies soon to brush up on the fundamentals. Game Night is the one that springs top of mind, actually, but I feel like it might be fun to think up a few more movies not starring Seth Rogen to watch before the due date in two months.
With headlines like “Cruella Shouldn’t Work, But Mostly Does,” and real news outlets asking hard-hitting questions like, Is 101 Dalmatians About Incest, how could one not break health guidelines to go see this in theaters? I have gone the entire ad blitz for this movie without seeing a single trailer or read any think pieces on the live-action remake of this beloved film about puppy murder. About the only thing I’ve seen are the memes comparing it to the Joker, and in some ways that was what I was psychically preparing myself for: a little split personality disorder, some edgy personal rationale for canicide. I honestly could’ve stayed on the fence about this movie, because honestly watching Emma Stone toggle between any of a dozen different wigs over the course of this movie was all I needed, and there’s something really cool about watching The Devil Wear’s Prada for the first time through its director’s adaptation of his own adaptation of a novel via a Disney story. But Wife came down hard on it, so I feel like I’m obliged to take her lead.
First, the pluses, because they are fewer. There are a couple of scenes that lean pretty hard into the fact that this movie is at its core basically The Dark Knight from the Joker’s POV. There are some mirror scenes like the opening heist that Cruella uses to similar effect. The “I am Spartacus” scene in Cruella is quite bad.
But if you’re already sensitive to the fact that Cruella is mining superhero/villain movies for its cinematography, then I think it probably feels right. There’s another scene that I have been having trouble finding the exact cinematic source material for, which is the break in to the police station. I thought at first that it was also a Dark Knight reference, but I actually think the closest recent example is probably from BoP.
The Joker’s escape from a police precinct was less visually on the nose, but it was maybe top of mind because Joker.
In terms of other silver linings, it’s kind of cool to see LGBTQ characters getting some rep in major motion picture films, even if that representation feels a little glossed over or rose-colored relative to the time period. It doesn’t mean we need to plaster a newsfeed of gay folks getting beaten at Stonewall or a headline about chemical castration being outlawed while Cruella is a teen, but it does seem a bit glib to fast forward to from early 60s to punk rock with the sexual politics of 2021 and not comment on it.
Speaking of leaving things uncommented upon, Wife says that watching how much Cruella’s friends put up with her cruelty stretches the bounds of credulity. There are a lot of moments, I guess, when the only good decision is to nope out of helping your clearly mean former-friend and they don’t. At the very least, the friends endlessly complain about how much of a monster Cruella is being. And yet, the movie moves so far from the original source material that it’s really hard to see how or if the remake is meant to retcon some of the most villainous aspects of Cruella in the first place. We don’t vilify her for her taste in clothes or her laugh or her smoking. We think she’s a homicidal maniac and a bit of a creep. I like the way in which the movie postures itself as less of a redemptive retelling or an apology in the vein of Joker, but instead more in line with Suicide Squad–a group of clearly bad individuals who are pitted against an even worse Big Bad, which forces them to do something that you can root for. I’m told that when people do vampire LARPs, the villain of those events aren’t dragons or mad wizards but other, older vampires, which seems to be standard operating procedure in Cruella.
Friend and Wife both agreed though that this is really a distressing movie to place into the “genetic determinism” category. Wife says she wonders how anyone who’s adopted would feel watching this movie. I’m obliged to once again bring up Kurt Vonnegut because it seems like that shorthand story about the cosmic gospel is probably the easiest way to lodge complaints with the Storytellers of America.
Before we went to this movie, Wife did some spiraling about the continuity of the theme song, which, she informed me, is crafted in film by one of the characters. She’d been spinning her wheels about whether this was going to be an in media res story or a true prequel. She actually put it in terms of Beauty and the Beast Christmas Special and Lion King 1 1/2, which I think is more apropos because it’s already part of established precedent in the Disney canon. You’re going to get an unsatisfying resolution to her question in the movie, do not worry. Speaking of music, this movie had a strong playlist–Friend said during the movie that it was maybe a little shallow, which reminded me that this may actually become a problem that other, less wealthy studios or the streaming services who acquire these movies in the distant future have to grapple with, because apparently the rights to this music being featured is not always permanent.
“For a second there I thought she was going to Promising Young Woman herself” was how Wife explained the ending of the movie, which probably says as much about how she felt about PYW’s ending as it does about Cruella’s. I guess I’m not entirely happy with the quality of lawyers in terms of trying to explain the relationship between Estella and Cruella in the bequest, but I guess in the heat of the moment there aren’t as many questions asked maybe?
There isn’t much to be said in favor of this movie except if you’ve been really dying to see Emma Stone act insufferably, you’ve got a pretty good bank of scenes in this movie to return to from time to time.
