FILMTRACKS.COM
PRINTER-FRIENDLY VIEW

Review of Cruella (Nicholas Britell)

FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:

Buy it... if style prevails over substance in your approach to flamboyant punk rock attitude, Nicholas Britell succeeding in supplying the perfect tone of timelessly irreverent coolness for this picture.

Avoid it... if you lament the squandering of great melodic potential in film scores, this one badly failing to enunciate or develop its main theme in satisfactory fashion.

FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Cruella: (Nicholas Britell) In a world where every villain now has to be redeemed or explained, Disney rehabilitates the otherwise two-dimensional Cruella de Vil from 1961's One Hundred and One Dalmatians by supplying a dubious and attractive backstory for the character. Never mind that the delicious stereotype of the villain from 1961 is totally ruined by 2021's Cruella, for the studio wants you to think that her evil is cool, acceptable, and even sexy. It's a far more brazenly insipid exploration than the Maleficent films, de Vil's younger self battling persona and familial issues in 1970's London while conveying a clear tendency towards violence and mentally sick depravity. The movie is the obligatory origin story, pointing the blame for Estella de Vil's personality disorders on the fashion-dominating Baroness von Hellman. As de Vil works for and eventually prevails over her boss and assumes her wealth and hatred for dogs, audiences are expected to cheer for the Estella-turned-Cruella as the protagonist. Disney pushed the film to theatres as its first major post-pandemic offering, its soundtrack earning praise despite a tough reception for the story it accompanies. With such a ridiculous plotline, Cruella is truly a spectacle of sights and sounds, and the songs and score of the film help root the 1970's punk rock attitude of the production. The film is littered with rock songs that don't really match the era shown on the screen, the attitude of the selections emphasized over their precise era. Meanwhile, Nicholas Britell's matching score exudes all the same timeless rock and punk personality, meandering into jazz and classical at times but remaining fluid in its genre during its length. The young American composer has shined in the Hollywood spotlight due to the unconventional styles he brings to his film scores, emulating the career trajectory of Daniel Pemberton and earning mainstream award recognition for Moonlight and If Beale Street Could Talk in the late 2010's. Many of those scores were highly overrated, however, and Britell's tendency towards style over substance continues with Cruella.

It's clear that the Disney production wanted music for Cruella as cool as the newfound protagonist, and in matching the rebellious tone of the script and the song placements, Britell provides exactly the attitude necessary. His music is brash, confident, and carefree, menacing at times but generally snazzy. On the surface, it is extremely attractive in its rendering, matching the tone and structures of the end credits song and kicking all pre-conceived notions of Disney music squarely between the legs. The ensemble for the recording features rock band elements highlighted by guitars, electric bass, percussion, and female vocals for the bulk of the work while piano and synthetic and real strings provide the emotional depth to the music. The performances all around are spirited, many cues offered a defiant stance by mere instrumental inflection. The genre-hoping is sometimes slightly jarring, but Britell maintains enough of the same posture to keep the movie's disposition enhanced. It's an immensely entertaining score upon first listen, but underneath the glitz is questionable and often inadequate structural development that doesn't serve the narrative as well as hoped. Britell's handling of his themes in Cruella is both consistent and insufficient, always present but never impactful. It's an extremely odd circumstance, but one that results from a composer who devises two primary themes and then fails to state more than their underlying chords or counterpoint lines constantly without actually taking the melodies in a meaningful direction. The structures of his themes tend to repeat over and over again, turning them into potentially tedious rhythmic devices rather than evolving melodies. The main theme for Estella herself is maddeningly elusive despite being everywhere, its melodic figures most often dissolved into rhythmic duties. Its counterpoint line uses ascending pairs of notes (the first two notes of the melody) and itself becomes another identity, though both this and the main phrasing is often absent; Britell instead relies upon the chord progressions of the theme alone to extend the idea. Nice hints of the theme occupy "Cruella - Disney Castle Logo" before a harsher edge from first the chords only and then the melody blended with its counterpoint lines emerge in "The Drive to London."

Only the chords and counterpoint of Britell's theme for Estella in Cruella extend to the jazz of "The Baroness Needs Looks," and the melody itself returns on a xylophone effect at the outset of "Everything's Going So Well." Both "The Necklace" and "The Angle" open with the rising counterpoint pairs under the main theme's chords, the full melody finally exposed on guitar later in the latter cue. The counterpoint line exists in ballsy rock form throughout "Surveillance." The melody shifts to sleazy jazz mode with piano in "I Like to Make an Impact" and is deconstructed with suspense in "Oh, That's a Hybrid." The underlying chords are prevalent by "Revenge/Let's Begin," shades of the counterpoint line again on the xylophone effect leading to a short suspense crescendo for those pairs in "Putting the Dresses in the Safe." Aggressive rock versions of the theme's chords burst in the latter half of "Get It Open/Moths," turning to abrasive anger in "Oh, That's Why You're Peeved." At this point in the score, Britell starts shifting from synthetic to real strings as Estella learns of her past; in "I'm Cruella," the string ensemble (with solo emphasis) offers the theme's chords before the xylophone returns with the theme itself. Fragments on piano later in that cue continue to stew with only the chords until one final melodic statement. The chords alone pulsate under the action of "A Great Tribute/She's Here" and dramatic opening of "The Cliff," the counterpoint returning in the middle of the latter before the cue's conclusive crescendo accesses only the chords, which continue on full strings in another crescendo during all of "She Jumped!" The theme is finally expressed clearly on guitar throughout "Goodbye, Estella" with stylish vocals. This idea is ultimately extremely frustrating in its inert development and understatement during much of the score despite such flamboyant coloration in so many cues. Not helping its case is that its simplistic chord progressions and badly enunciated melody are significantly inferior when compared to the score's other theme. Representing Estella's origins and, by association, the Baroness, this secondary waltz theme is a clear winner, offering a structure and personality that could have been applied as the score's main theme for Estella. The idea shares some of its chord progressions with the main theme but its melody translates into great hypnotic figures that are far more memorable.

The secondary "origins" theme in Cruella debuts in its extravagantly post-modern blend of old and new in "The Baroque Ball," complete with faux-opulent "la-la" female vocals. This same cue is reprised with fantastic performance emphasis in "Orchestral Waltz," translated to strings and piano in a traditional but still attitude-driven posture. This theme makes its impact in the score's "realization" cues relating to Estella's lineage in the final third of the story. The string ensemble takes the idea beautifully in "The True Story of Cruella's Birth," ascendant vocals of lamentation compensating for bizarrely clicking percussion underneath. The melody smartly returns in the middle of "I'm Cruella" on solo piano, building to a pronounced string transformation for Estella's main theme. Slight references tactfully persist on piano at the 3-minute mark of "The Cliff." The situation with the themes of Cruella is baffling because Britell's main identity isn't clearly stated or developed well in the narrative whereas his secondary origins theme is a true winner when it is applied. With the instrumentation of the score so perfectly nailed by the composer, the lack of a coherent narrative with his main theme is a tremendously wasted opportunity to generate one of the most memorable film scores of the era. The grungy end credits song, "Call Me Cruella," has some compositional input from Britell, the chord progressions, counterpoint, and faint melody of his main theme informing the instrumental backing of the song but the actual melody of the song itself remaining totally elusive. This disconnect symbolizes everything wrong with the Cruella soundtrack: outrageously punchy personality squandered by an inability to clearly enunciate the themes and develop those statements as the narrative requires. On album, the 50-minute score presentation adds the credits song and will serve as a fantastic souvenir from the film due to its attitude alone. Expect long fade-outs and extended near-silence at the end of tracks to slow the experience at times. The sound mixing is rather dry on the rock instrumentation. Overall, Britell was definitely on the right track with Cruella, his rock instrumentation and secondary theme often compelling, though a totally incoherent main theme that stews in its underlying chord progressions and vague counterpoint lines without any convincing evolution from start to end is an immensely frustrating disappointment. A five-star score was in the making before it went to the dogs.  ***

TRACK LISTINGS:

Total Time: 50:38

• 1. Call Me Cruella* (2:07) • 2. Cruella - Disney Castle Logo (0:45) • 3. The Baroque Ball (2:01) • 4. The Most Dreadful Accident (1:18) • 5. The Drive to London (1:36) • 6. Red Hair Dye (0:24) • 7. The Baroness Needs Looks (1:08) • 8. I Think You're Something (2:10) • 9. Everything's Going So Well (0:41) • 10. The Necklace (1:33) • 11. The Angle (1:10) • 12. Surveillance (1:44) • 13. I Like to Make an Impact (1:52)

• 14. Oh, That's a Hybrid (1:43) • 15. Revenge/Let's Begin (3:38) • 16. Putting the Dresses in the Safe (0:42) • 17. Get It Open/Moths (1:50) • 18. Oh, That's Why You're Peeved (2:47) • 19. The True Story of Cruella's Birth (1:55) • 20. I'm Cruella (4:21) • 21. A Great Tribute/She's Here (3:45) • 22. The Cliff (4:33) • 23. She Jumped! (0:50) • 24. Goodbye, Estella (1:51) • 25. Call Me Cruella (Instrumental Version) (2:06) • 26. Orchestral Waltz (Bonus Track) (2:09)

NOTES & QUOTES:

There exists no official packaging for this album.

Copyright © 2021-2024, Filmtracks Publications. All rights reserved.
The reviews and other textual content contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Christian Clemmensen at Filmtracks Publications. All artwork and sound clips from Cruella are Copyright © 2021, Walt Disney Records and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 6/3/21 (and not updated significantly since).