Estella, a young and clever grifter who’s determined to make a name for herself in the fashion world meets a pair of thieves who appreciate her appetite for mischief, and together they build a life for themselves on the streets of London. However, when Estella befriends fashion legend Baroness Von Hellman, she embraces her evil side to become the harsh and revenge-bent Cruella.
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People from 90’s definitely remember 101 Dalmatians from 1996 where Glenn Close played the role of Cruella De Vil and was always behind the evil idea of getting the fur of puppies to make her coat, a horrific plot described in a humorous form. But the film Cruella from 2021 here has a different story.
Directed by Craig Gillespie, Cruella (2021) is an absolute paragon with a perfect blend of comedy and crime. The role of protagonist played by ever charming Emma Stone, just breathtaking. And the stunning switch between Estella and Cruella just shows how perfect Emma is in terms of taking the full fledged form of the character in good and evil sides respectively.
Estella, born with partial black and white hairs struggles in settling down with life since childhood, who wants to be a successful fashion designer, but her fate turns out to be something in negatives. The ones who appreciate her appearance become her partners in crime and work together throughout the story to avenge the Baroness who is known to be the actual root of the entire trauma that Estella has been facing all her life.
The film includes few twists and stunning suspense scenes which shows Estella’s design skills, mentality, team work and plannings in accomplishing her heists and fame. In simple terms, the 21st century Cruella doesn’t hate dogs, she in fact loves them and teams them up in her gang to carry out crimes and missions, even the three Dalmatians of Baroness. If we precisely dive deep into the story, Cruella can be described as the female version of joker played by Arthur Fleck in the film Joker (2019) as she too goes through depression and acts accordingly in certain parts of the movie when the truth unfolds to her slowly.
The film is structured as a family-friendly heist movie that plays out against a series of costume balls. There’s probably one act too many and so the treading suffers; younger children with shorter attention spans might, too. Still, Stone is a joy: vampy, sneering and as eager to please as a dalmatian.