Cruella (2021)

It's very much the norm now. After milking most of their properties with multiple sequels and spin-offs, and those constant "live-action" remakes, Disney have now figured out another way to sell product. They retell a story from a different angle, which mainly allows them to turn classic villains into strong anti-heroes. This approach didn't really work for me when they gave us Maleficent, mainly due to the fact that I felt the central character was reshaped too much to fit in with the new spin they wanted to give her, but it delivers a better result here, thanks mainly to the central cast and the fun spirit of the main set-pieces.

Starting with a sequence that shows a young girl named Estella (a wonderful turn from Tipper Seifert-Cleveland) being a bit troublesome for her mother, Catherine (Emily Beecham), viewers soon learn a few important details. When her troublesome side comes out, Estella refers to herself as Cruella. And one particularly lively escapade ends with her mother dying. We then move swiftly on to a montage that shows Estella meeting Jasper and Horace, living a life of opportunistic thievery, and then *voila* it's time to join the characters as young adults. Estella (now played by Emma Stone) wants nothing more than a chance to become a great fashion designer. Jasper (Joel Fry) and Horace (Paul Walter Hauser) may be able to help her achieve that dream, or they may just muck things up as they plan everything with an angle for an easy payday. Everything seems to be looking up, however, when Estella is noticed by The Baroness (Emma Thompson), and her eye for design gets her some rare praise. But some details soon come to light that make Estella realise she has been living a lie for some time, and the best person to set things right is . . . Cruella.

There's a lot to like in Cruella and, despite the overlong runtime (why must every major movie lately be over two hours long?), it's one that should keep many viewers happy. There's a fun, punk-lite, approach to the material that gives it an energy and vibe I cannot recall in any other Disney movie. It also manages to make the central character likeable without changing her completely, mainly because the events depicted here feel as if they take place quite some time before the events depicted in 101 Dalmations. As predictable as the plotting is, the actual character interactions and dialogue make things feel fresh and fun throughout. 

That's also down to the cast. Stone is clearly having a ball for every minute that she's onscreen, and she gets to showcase a number of different looks and fashion styles (all of them pretty stunning and cool). Alongside everyone else onscreen, she pitches her performance perfectly, showing both the monstrous personality that will come to the fore in a few decades time and the twitchy girl quick to survey any situation to size up the potential loot and escape routes. Although more one note, Thompson is absolutely wonderful as The Baroness, a woman with a villainous manner who inadvertently helps Estella to put more of her faith in Cruella. Fry and Hauser are both fun as Jasper and Horace, although it's fair to say that both are also outshone by a small dog named Wink in any scenes that feature him. No slight on their performances, it's just that very few people could manage not to be outshone by Wink. John McCrea also gets to have a lot of fun, and costume changes, as Artie, a Bowie-esque young man who takes a liking to the style of both Estella and Cruella. As much as I love him, and I do, the only cast member who feels out of place is Mark Strong, maintaining his usual level of earnestness and gravitas in a film that wants to be a bright and funky cartoon.

Director Craig Gillespie was a good choice for directing this, based on his track record, but I'm less sure about the pairing of Dana Fox and Tony McNamara in the writing department. Fox has a number of so-so romantic comedies to her credit, but McNamara has the likes of The Favourite, "The Great", and the excellent (you should check it out) The Rage In Placid Lake to his credit, all of which seem more suited to writing a script about the formative years of Cruella de Vil. At least someone saw the working script for Birds Of Prey, but I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing.

What is a bad thing is the excessive use of music throughout. I'm not exaggerating when I say that the intrusive needle drops are on a par with Suicide Squad. The songs here may feel more relevant for every main scene, but I can only assume that music supervisor Susan Jacobs was told "get a song for every single scene . . . we'll decide the ones we don't need later". It spoils a lot of the movie, especially when you hear just enough of the score from Nicholas Britell to appreciate his work, and want more of it.

I personally liked most of the set-pieces, mainly a couple of heists and the big finale, but the aesthetic throughout works both for and against the material. What works one minute can grate the next, simply because of the unrelenting cacophony of music and camera moves. There's also the problem, inherent in most Disney movies, of knowing exactly how things will turn out. That's highlighted here with a sentence delivered in the opening scenes that you know cannot be taken as literal truth, which immediately undermines the ways in which the script tries to be a bit more clever and subversive.

You'll have a fun time watching Cruella, and almost any scene involving both Stone and Thompson is a pure delight. It's nothing great though. Maybe cinematic greatness is almost impossible when Disney keep raiding their own history, as opposed to creating some entirely new heroes/villains/anti-heroes to take us on pathways we haven't already walked over at some point.

6/10

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I, Tonya (2017)

I am quite an inactive person. Well, right now I am training to run for a marathon (click and show support here, feel free to share and/or donate), but I am generally not a sporty type. Never have been. I try to do enough to stop my body from seizing up, that's all. I don't even watch any sporting events, certainly not with advance planning. But I do admire those who are physically capable of great sporting feats. And I do recognise that those performing in competitions, and those trying to become good enough to represent their country at the Olympic level, are individuals who have sacrificed a lot in order to get the smallest chance at achieving greatness.

And I think that's really worth bearing in mind when you think of the story of Nancy Kerrigan. This film may be about Tonya Harding but it's Kerrigan who was the victim, an ice skater who could have been irreparably harmed in a vicious attack that was for no other reasons than to let someone else (Harding) slip into their place. If you don't know the full story then I recommend you look into it. I vaguely remember being gobsmacked as I saw the trial unfold.

This film has been made because of that shocking event, and that's really what it's all about. But on the lead up to that event we get to see what a horrible life has been led by Harding (played by Margot Robbie), suffering a lot of grief at the hands of her nasty mother (Allison Janney) before rushing into a turbulent relationship, to put it mildly, with her first husband (Sebastian Stan). Her constant pleasure is ice skating, something she was very talented at, and something that led to her fame and infamy.

Written by Steven Rogers, who has previously given audiences a bundle of tear-jerking dramas, and one Christmas movie, this is a zippy, entertaining biopic that seems to take Harding's own perspective of events over any conflicting views. That's not a terrible thing, especially when the film states at the very start that a lot of the events are being depicted as they were described in different interviews, but it does lead to a number of moments that have had left some viewers feeling rather unhappy with how things are depicted.

Director Craig Gillespie does good work, despite the obvious soundtrack choices and the execution of certain scenes feeling very much like moments lifted from better films in this mould. I'm not going to namecheck the directors that Gillespie seems to be emulating because a) so many other people have already done that, and b) it's obvious to most film fans as soon as things start to play out.

But it's the cast really making this worth your time. Robbie is superb in the lead role, perfectly portraying both rebel and victim. Stan and Janney both do well as the main people in her life who excel at, well, treating her like shit, and Paul Walter Hauser is amusing as someone creating a fantasy life in his mind that eventually turns into something life-altering for everyone involved in The Incident.

Despite being too flattering to Tonya Harding (well, the title is a clue to where it will stand), and despite slipping here and there, this still makes for a decent show. Even if, unlike the main character, it never comes close to landing its own triple axel.

7/10

Fans of the film may enjoy this book.
Over in the USofA you can order the disc here.