Cruella review: The supervillain and style icon we deserve

A fashionable film is a beautiful film. Be it Alicia Silverstone shrilly introducing audiences to the high-fashion name ‘Alaya’ in Clueless, Daniel Day-Lewis sewing messages into the linings of gowns he designs in Phantom Thread, or the aggressively alpha male secret agents arguing about Gucci and Prada belts and purses in The Man From U.N.C.L.E, sartorial distinctiveness can go a long way. In Cruella, a high priestess of fashion arrives at a gala in a gunmetal-grey Jaguar Mark X — a majestic, imposing car much the province of gangsters and tax evaders — but before she can step onto the red carpet, two formally dressed valets use a seatbelt-wide strip of tape to seal the car doors shut. Stone creates what is — to paraphrase David Bowie — ‘a brand new dance; we don’t know its name.’ Humanising a villain is tricky, and the chain-smoking Cruella De Vil is an ambitious ask, for while audiences have demonstrated an appetite for misunderstood murderers, eloquent cannibals and dishy vampires, it is hard to imagine a crowd warming up to one who steals pets and skins them for a winter coat. Some intriguing characters are given short shrift: Kirby Howell-Baptiste as Anita Darling, Kayvan Novak as the Baroness’s lawyer and, most importantly, John McCrea’s glam designer Artie, who is apparently “the first openly gay original character in a live-action Disney movie,” or so the studio believes.