What do you get if you cross ‘the devil wears Prada’ and ‘Joker’? You get Disney’s latest villain origin story Cruella! Head back to the 1970s London and meet Estella (Emma Stone), a young and recently orphaned girl who believes she is the cause for her mother’s death. She tries to live up to her mother’s final wishes by becoming a well-known fashion designer. But when she starts to work for the fashionista Baroness (Emma Thompson), she realises the Baroness has connections to her mother, and the answers to Estella’s past. She must work hard to uncover the truth of her family- and looking fashionable along the way! I thought that Emma (Stone) absolutely crushed it, whilst I was sceptical when she was first cast as the character- I am thrilled to say I was proved wrong. I also thought that Emma (Thompson) was brilliant throughout the film- and I loved to see the two Emma’s sharing the screen together. Cruella is visually amazing, I was stunned at some of the set pieces, cinematography and especially the costumes. It also offered some unexpected great action sequences too. The soundtrack was done to perfection; so great that I felt myself tapping my toes throughout a lot of the songs! Whilst I thought the writing was ok, I did have some problems with the overall pacing and story. The film does offer some good dialogue, and some very funny moments. However, the film is also incredibly long (a lengthy 2 hours and 15 minutes) which gave the film some major pacing issues. We spent too long with young Estella, and not enough time whilst she was working her way up in her career. It felt like one minute she was cleaning the floors, and the next she was the Baroness’ right-hand woman. Her overall motive went from stealing the necklace, to suddenly upstaging the Baroness any way she can. It really wasn’t clear that these were her motives, and I think for a family audience it should’ve been made a little bit clearer. However, this mildly irritated me and didn’t take away from my overall enjoyment of the film. It’s a witty, charming, and DeVil-iously good film and a great watch for the half term holidays!
