There are two ways to make a villain’s backstory work successfully: by demonstrating that they were never truly evil (à la Elphaba in Wicked) or by providing pathetic motives for their malicious actions (Maleficent). Cruella fails to do either.

In fact, the Cruella of (director) Craig Gillespie is so unlike the original character that one wonders whether the Cruella title was provided just to make the film marketable. It feels more like a remake of The Devil Wears Prada, co-directed by Zack Snyder and Baz Luhrmann, than a Cruella De Vil backstory.

By the film’s end one is  left wondering whether  one is actually supposed to be on Cruella’s side. This Cruella’s aversion to killing dogs to wear their fur would suggest that she is not truly the villain. So, is she the antihero? Is she the villain turned good? Is she just one megalomaniac who has defeated another to usurp the latter’s fortune? She has sympathetic elements: the birth defect leading to bullying in school; becoming an orphan after witnessing her mother’s murder by a Dalmatian (in the most unbelievable way, one might add); the underappreciated creative flair. Yet, she is also a thief, vandal and dognapper, commits common law assault, sabotages her employer’s company – the list could go on. More of a vigilante than a hero, her motives were never to do good, but to exact revenge on those who had wronged her. Originally named “Estella”, the name she adopts for herself, “Cruella de Vil”, develops a half-ironic tone: she is neither truly a cruel devil nor wholly innocent. The name simply hangs around like an unwanted guest you’re too polite to uninvite.

Emma Stone’s inconsistent performance may be explained by a simple lack of certainty around the character and her motivations – one minute anguished, the next vengeful, the next unhinged, the next caring. Stone’s portrayal is as much goofball as genius, as much powerful woman as whimpering waif, while never really achieving any of them, leaving a confused cocktail of a character.

 Nor is it entirely clear what the parable of the film is supposed to be. It seems to hint at the moral of the story being that we should accept people for their differences – yet, it does seem hard to sympathise with the plight of a thin, white, pretty, middle-class girl with creative genius growing up in England, even if she did have unusual hair and lived in a small town in the ‘60s. And then, what do we discover? That the orphan girl was in fact the daughter of an aristocrat – because what really determines your skills, character and intelligence is your genetic lineage. Of course! Only the daughter of an aristocrat could be so remarkable, she couldn’t possibly be the descendent of a commoner!

This revelation of notable heritage was the film’s real eye-roll moment – not just because it’s so overdone (think Harry Potter, every Star Wars Film, Batman), but because it is so archaic. It reeks of classism. Can’t we have an eccentric genius who is the protagonist through their own volition rather than because of genetic determinism (implied or explicit)? The kick in the teeth comes from the accent Emma Stone adopts when she ‘transforms’ into Cruella,  declaiming/enunciating like she literally has a foot in her mouth in emulation of the English aristocracy – as if that was the way she really ought to be talking.

The  sole noteworthy performance comes from the other Emma – Emma Thomson. She plays Baroness Von Hellman, the bitchy, imperious, Miranda Priestly-esque  face of a fashion house. Her character is consistent, subtle, and formidable. Emma Thomson is fabulously camp while still remaining believable – apart from when she places cucumber slices over her pristine eye makeup (what self-respecting businesswoman would risk ruining her eyeliner?!). Unlike Stone,   left to contend with fatuous lines such as “there’s something about poetic justice that is just so… poetic”, Thomson is given some great zingers. A personal favourite was ripped (albeit in a slightly bastardised form) right from the mouth of Margaret Thatcher herself: “that’s the thing about power: if you have to talk about it, you don’t have it”.

Thomson looks splendiferous in each and every one of her Dior-inspired outfits, which brings us to the real star of the show: the fashion.

I must be frank that the eras were a little confused. The film  is set in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, but the fashion references  are entirely anachronistic. I caught myself wondering what possible justification mid-’00s Alexander Mcqueen had for appearing in 1975 beside ‘90s Vivienne Westwood and Mugler, but the spectacle was so wonderful that I didn’t really care to answer the question.

Thomson adopts an opulent but more classical glamour, at times emulating Norma Desmond from Sunset Boulevard:

Whereas Stone is given a more rebellious, punk rock image:

It is easier to imagine the traditional Cruella embodying the faded glamour of Norma Desmond, but there is nonetheless something satisfying about the nouveau Cruella’s fashion stunts: lighting her outfit on fire to reveal another underneath; falling out of a dustbin lorry into a pile of old clothing, only to reveal that the dirty pieces of fabric form the extravagantly long train of a dress as the lorry drives away with Cruella clinging to the back of it. These don’t just feel like superficial spectacle either – they are genuinely creative fashion moments that rival some of the most provocative runway stunts.

 Some plot points are seriously shaky. I’ve mentioned the mother’s ridiculous murder already. We are expected to believe that three Dalmatians remain alert and active after over a decade has passed. Unfortunately, the little darlings would most likely be dead (and Cruella would have been able to turn them into a fur coat without cruelty after all). Cruella’s ‘disguise’  is a change of hair colour and some smoky makeup. We are really expected to believe that an apparent genius, who can tell when people are lying to her and is able to find out when clients have been embezzling hundreds of thousands of pounds, is not able to recognise her favourite employee, whom she sees every day, just because their hair colour is different? They really pulled some Hannah Montana shenanigans in a film with a budget over $100m. As the disguise is a key plot point, it truly erodes the suspension of disbelief.

Perhaps the plot holes can be forgiven if one considers that the film is created by Disney and aimed at a younger audience. What I could not really forgive is the feeling of uneasiness that I was left with at the end of the film. The gang of thieves hold a symbolic effigy for the ‘dead’ Estella, indicating  that Cruella is her permanent future identity. But Cruella represented some of the worst elements of  Estella’s character: the ruthlessness, the ingratitude; the spite. Cruella has the opposite of a redemption arc – she embraces the toxic parts of herself and incinerates the nicer ones. And this is made to feel triumphant – not because they are celebrating Estella’s life, but because they are leaving it behind. They are celebrating the death of the hero – a very unnerving though