By: Sarah Miesleman

I recently watched the new 2021 version of Cruella. Set in the 1970s in London, this movie follows the story of a young orphan named Estella. The movie begins to set up the various elements of the plot by showing a long flashback of Estella, also known as Cruella, during her childhood. Viewers see Estella breaking the rules so often at her school that the head of the school chooses to expel her. Her mother, Catherine, is forced to bring Estella to London in the hopes of finding a school that Estella will be able to fit into. Her mother makes a stop at an extravagant house hosting a party, explaining to Estella that she is meeting with a friend who will help them financially get back on their feet. Estella is captivated by the party, and sneaks inside, but her dog, Buddy, gets loose and angers the three dalmatians at the party. These three dalmatians run until they reach the area where Estella’s mother is talking to a very well-dressed woman, who is later discovered to be Baroness von Hellman. The dogs slam into Estella’s mother, who then falls off the balcony to the rocky water below, killing her. 

Estella lives most of her life believing it is her fault, since her actions triggered the dogs. After these events make her an orphan, Estella wonders the streets of London. She meets two other orphans named Horace and Jasper, who allow her to live with them, thus beginning a life of crime together, mostly involving stealing money to survive. Jasper sees that Estella is unhappy, and gets her a job at the Liberty, a fashion design company, knowing that her dream is to design fashion. 

The conflict begins when Estella begins working for the Baroness von Hellman. Estella impresses Baroness, who promotes Estella to a main supervisor position. After working for quite a bit of time, Estella sees her necklace that she lost a few days prior, which was given to her by her dead mother, on the Baronesses neck. The Baroness tells Estella that the necklace was previously stolen from her, and Estella resorts to getting Jasper and Horace to help steal the necklace back. At the party they crash to get the necklace back, the Baroness is wearing it and Jasper releases rats to distract the party goers. As the Baroness uses a dog whistle to command her Dalmatians, Estella comes to the realization that the Baroness used the same whistle to direct her dogs to kill Estella’s mother. In her anger, Estella goes under the alias of Cruella and begins a fasion war. 

Cruella’s schemes get more daring as time goes on, causing the Baroness to discover that Cruella is Estella. The Baroness then finds Estella’s hideout and captures Jasper and Horace. She then ties Estella up and burns her home to the ground, while arresting Jasper and Horace and blaming them for Estella’s death. Fortunately, Estella is rescued by John, the Baroness’ valet. He explains that he had gotten the necklace back, which is then revealed to be the key to a box containing Estella’s birth records. Estella discovers she is Baroness’ daughter. Viewers of the movie then see a flashback of the Baroness, who was disappointed to find out she was pregnant, asking that Estella be killed. After, the Baroness’s husband died of grief believing the baby to be dead. John, unable to kill the baby, gave Estella to Catherine, a servant at the time, to be raised in secret.

After hearing this painful news, Cruella breaks Jasper and Horace out of jail. They then use the party the Baroness is hosting to avenge Catherine’s death. They trick the Baroness’ guests into wearing Cruella wigs and break into the Baroness’s party, where Cruella has the Baroness come out to see her on the balcony and reveal that she knows about being her child. The Baroness pretends to be happy to reunite with her daughter and approaches for a hug. Jasper and Horace have planned for this to happen and bring the guests outside to watch. The guests witness the Baroness shoving Estella off the landing and over the cliff. The police, having arrived after being called by Cruella, arrest the Baroness. Cruella uses a parachute as she falls and returns to witness the Baroness being taken away. Now having adopted the full name of Cruella de Vil, she acquires Hellman Hall and shortens it to Hell Hall, taking her rightful place.

Cruella at a party (Source: pinterest)

When watching the movie, I fell in love with the costumes and the fashion. They were phenomenal and absolutely worth my time. But I watched the movie for free with a friend, and I am glad because this movie is not worth your money. While it is entertaining, the plot is basic and predictable. The characters were also quite cliché, and even Cruella, who is dynamic, has barely any defining personality, other than being cruel and mischievous. I also call the characters cliché because the antagonist, the Baroness, was entirely evil, and the side characters, Jesper and Horace, went along with Cruella with a small number of arguments. They were not given much personality, leaving the movie with exactly one round character, Estella/Cruella, with the rest of the characters being flat. I find it difficult to get engaged with a movie, when only one character piques my interest.

Another one of the reasons I did not love this movie is because it has no real genre. According to a few websites, it is a comedy crime, but I did not laugh throughout the entire movie. It simply did not have good jokes, so I would not consider it a successful comedy, but it only had about one intense action scene, so I would not consider it a successful action movie either. The crime was there, though, so if that interests you, then you might enjoy the movie more. My opinions could also be biased, however, since I do tend to enjoy movies with a lot of action scenes. 

The movie was not all bad, though, and had a decent amount of quality components. The scene with the Baroness burning down Estella’s hideout was by far my favorite because viewers saw truly how cruel the Baroness was, and the special effects were mesmerizing. I do not know much about acting, but I can say that Emma Stone was perfect for the role of Estella/Cruella. She captured the protagonist in all her glory, both Estella and Cruella, and created an easily seen distinction between the two. For the antagonist, however, I would have liked to better understand how the Baroness was able to murder so many people without getting caught or feeling any remorse, and I would have loved a glimpse into the backstory that shaped her character. I also think that if the writers gave her just one saving quality, so that she was not a complete monster, the plot would have been a lot more realistic.

Overall, I would rate this movie a 3 out of 5 stars, with two stars being taken away because of the predictable plot and unremarkable characters, even though I loved watching the movie for entertainment. If you have Disney+ already, I recommend watching it, but if not, do not bother. The plot was slow and took a long time to develop, but with all that time, I still felt like none of the characters had a unique personality. I would prefer some more intense emotion from the side characters, but even so, the costumes and special effects were flawless, causing the movie to leave me content, but not in awe.