Cruella was a missed opportunity

Emily Whitehead writes.

I’ll be honest, when a friend suggested we see Cruella, my expectations were not high. I went along as an opportunity to laugh in disdain at yet another of Disney’s desperate attempts to capitalise on the scrawny remains of what was once good content. At the very least, it would be a temporary antidote to my increasing anxiety surrounding the rapidly approaching exam weeks, as well as an opportunity to make full use of Dendy’s $8 Friday night student tickets. It was, if you will, a hate-watch. But I’ll be the first to admit: I was wrong.

What I did not expect to find was a bizarre yet incredibly charming blend of The Devil Wears Prada, Ocean’s 11 and… murder? Cruella was stylish and witty, with stunning cinematography and an immaculate set design, including costuming worthy of its 70s London-punk-culture aesthetic. And it would be criminal to talk about Cruella without mentioning the insane soundtrack, featuring songs by The Clash, Queen, Supertramp, and Blondie, as well as an original song by Florence + the Machine. Most strikingly, however, Cruella had a storyline that was, dare I say it ... original?

Needless to say, I was obsessed. I spent the journey home raving about it, as well as an embarrassing amount of time researching temporary black hair dye in a definitely-a-joke-I-swear desire to mimic her iconic split-dye hairstyle.

However, as I lay in bed that night, deliberating if it was conceivably possible for me to recreate Cruella’s entire wardrobe on a $0 budget, one thought plagued my mind: what did any of this actually have to do with Cruella de Vil?

Frankly, there was no real reason for this film to be marketed as a Cruella de Vil backstory. This Cruella shares very little in common with the one we see in the 101 Dalmatians movies, and the plot, aside from establishing her relation to Anita, has no relevance to the original story. When it comes down to it, the links between Cruella and 101 Dalmatians can be reduced to little more than its iconography: the dalmatians, the melodramatic outfits, the split-dye hair.

She’s not even called Cruella until almost an hour into the film.

I am not the only one who noticed this either. From rifling through countless reviews of the film, many echo a similar sentiment: great, but...why?

“But Emily, if it’s a decent movie, why does it matter that it’s not necessarily relevant to its source material?” I hear you cry, “who cares?” I CARE. Because this isn’t just a one-off instance of a well-intended, if somewhat unnecessary nostalgia-trip. This is part of a bigger problem, a plague, if you will, on our beloved cinema screens, one in which Disney is the super spreader.

Disney is infamous for digging up beloved childhood characters from their respective graves only to throw their decrepit corpses back at us in the hopes that we cough up our hard-earned cash. This business plan unwaveringly exploits nostalgia with little regard for the sanctity of our romanticised childhood memories. Year after year, our local cinemas are draped with the posters of the latest live-action remake, starting (admittingly strong) with Maleficent, before tumbling swiftly downhill, with Cinderella, Beauty and The Beast, Aladdin, Mulan, and, God help us, The Lion King remake, each more rushed and avaricious than the last.

This strategy is not exclusive to Disney, however. Hollywood as a whole has been churning out a constant stream of reboots, remakes, and sequels. I’m aware that in doing so I risk sounding prematurely elderly, but gosh darn it sometimes I just want a good, old-fashioned, original movie.

With Cruella, what truly irks me is the loss of what might have been. The premise of a thief-aspiring-designer starting a stunt-high-fashion movement to avenge her mother’s murder is infinitely more intriguing without pretending it’s a character backstory no one needed. It’s an original concept and I truly believe that tying it to the drudging stream of remakes does a disservice to the film as a whole and everyone who worked on it, including director Craig Gillespie (known for other brilliant films such as I, Tonya), all of whom clearly put more thought into it than it’s getting credited for.

If Cruella was allowed to be presented as an original film, it could have sat among other Disney classics such as Pirates of the Caribbean, (which has, admittedly, since fallen prey to enfranchisement) and maybe even kick started a new wave of original Disney content. However, fewer and fewer film studios are willing to risk their bottom line producing films without a guaranteed audience. Disney knows we already like 101 Dalmatians. They know they can get enough of us to buy in without even needing to think up new ideas, and so by sticking the big shiny ‘Cruella’ label on the front, Disney are willing to fork out the $100 million required to produce it (which, can I just say, is an obscene amount of money to be spending on anything, like, jeez, Disney, people are dying). I, for one, would have thought the two multi-academy award winning lead actresses would have been enough of a name drop to guarantee viewership. Apparently not.

So, what is the point of all this? Do I hope Disney, since announcing the production of the Cruella sequel, will flip the script and pretend Cruella is an original character all along? Do I hope that with this impassioned letter I will convince the great studio-heads of Hollywood to reflect upon their actions, to change their ways for the art of filmmaking? Well, no, because Disney is a multi-billion-dollar conglomerate, and I am but a humble MECO student, with nominal career prospects, and an increasingly concerning addiction to banana smoothies. But I do hope that with this article I have at least provided a new perspective from which to view this film which, aside from its part in a growing film trend which I regard with extreme distaste, I think is rather splendid.

In conclusion: pretend her name’s not Cruella de Ville.