Honestly, I don’t expect much from Disney as a studio these days. A lot of their recent output feels pretty bleh to me, so I went into Cruella with very low expectations, mostly out of boredom. And… I ended up with very mixed feelings.
As a live-action movie, I actually think it’s one of the better ones they’ve done. The fashion wars are genuinely fun, the visual identity works, and the performances really carry the film. Emma Stone makes Cruella compelling and weirdly endearing, and the antagonist is just as strong. I also liked how the story connects back to the original Dalmatians narrative. It felt more thought-through than I expected. On a purely cinematic level, it’s entertaining, stylish, and well acted.
But the underlying messages are where the film starts to lose me. The way mental health is framed feels… uncomfortable. There’s this implication that it’s hereditary and almost destiny-coded, which is still very much a debated and sensitive topic, yet the film treats it in a pretty deterministic way. On top of that, mental health struggles are subtly villainised, framed as something dangerous or inherently tied to moral failure rather than something complex and contextual.
I was also really annoyed by how the story villainises a woman for not wanting children. The mother figure is career-driven, ambitious, and childfree, and that choice becomes a central moral flaw. Sure, abandoning a child is obviously not the solution, but it’s exhausting that her refusal of motherhood is positioned as part of what makes her monstrous. It’s such a tired narrative shortcut.
So yeah. I enjoyed watching it, I admired the craft, and I think it’s one of Disney’s stronger live-action attempts. But the politics under the surface left a bad taste for me. Mixed feelings, very much so.
