Cruella

Photo credit: Disney - Disney

I gotta admit it, I simply don’t get the trope. Why would I ever care about the backstory on some Disney villain, and why would I want to see a live interpretation about it? For those of us who don’t remember, Cruella De Vil was a (green smoke-) smoking, fur-wearing, hereditary landed plutocrat who needled her virtuous, but impecunious, friend Anita and Anita’s aspiring musician husband for their poverty while envying their wealth of Dalmatian puppies. And why does she envy someone the joy of puppies? That’s a nasty person.

But as it winds up, she wants to make a coat of them and 84 other kidnapped puppies. That’s a villain with a curious gruesomeness on the par of a Grimm fairy tale.

So why would I ever want to learn more about this individual? Why should she get the “Maleficent” treatment? I blame “The Dark Knight” (movie) and “Watchmen” (comic) for deluding content creators into the belief that what audiences want is gritty, peeled-back origin stories of some of the nastiest characters ever seen (“Joker”). I don’t go to movies to armchair psychoanalyze the antagonists in the dramas I’m watching. I have to do enough theory-of-mind work at work or, frankly, visiting a Manhattan Trader Joe’s.

So I again ask: “Who the hell asked for this?”

Given that Cruella, frankly, has so very little to do with the “101 Dalmatians” story, why not just call it “Fashion’s a Bitch in Swinging London.”

So, for the rest of my post here, I’m going to describe the Dalmatian-free movie, “Fashion’s a Bitch in Swinging London (FABSL)”

FABSL describes a battle-of-wills between a sociopath and a climber in a fantasy London, closer to “Rocket Man” or “Bohemian Rhapsody” than anywhere that was ever on Earth (but that’s OK). The movie’s use of music is novel and helps set the stage sonically. The soundtrack reminds us that we’re approaching peak glam (Bowie and Bolan), and there’s some dissent that’s going to burst our silky post-hippie dom by means of Sex Pistols, leather, and Goth. We see all these edgier, slinkier, trashier (literally) ideas beautifully seeping through in Cruella’s designs.

If Cruella represents what’s coming, the Baroness, uh, well, represents, what is or was. Revered by the suck-ups at the movie’s stand-in for Harrod’s and the gray-haired dowager set, the Baroness knows she’s bankrupt on ideas (and morals, for what it’s worth). She’s hidden her intellectual bankruptcy by thieving off of the true geniuses (shades of “The Fountainhead” here) in her atlier.

The film’s high points are the amazing costumes and the double-Emma face offs. Thompson is getting better with age, like Anthony Hopkins and will give us years of amazing roles ahead. Stone, for her part, portrays distraught, conflicted grief (on a motorcycle!) better than I could have ever imagined possible.

Between the dueling Emmas, the costumes, the good music, and some fun visual hijinx, I had a good time watching FABSL and would recommend it for some light-hearted entertainment or on a plane.

But seriously, why yoke Dalmations to FABSL (or vice-versa)?