Straitforward Classic

Rating: 9/10 (25 August 2015)

101 Dalmatians is a straightforward animated classic whose brilliance is in its details. The plot is an uncomplicated kids story--a young couple own two dogs that have dalmatian puppies, but an evil friend of the couple wants the puppies for an unclear purpose. It turns out that she wants to kill them and use their coats for a fashion experiment, and after the couple decides not to sell her the puppies, she sends a couple of hired goons to kidnap them. The goons do their job, but the puppies escape and the chase is on.
101 Dalmatians sounds like a kids' movie, and it is a kids' movie, but like all good Disney movies, this film resonates with adults as well. The key aspect is the villain, Cruella de Vil, who is one of those people that you occasionally run across and wish you hadn't. Cruella is quite simply an evil person, someone so self-involved that she really does not care about others at all. What makes her effective is that we know people like this, but sometimes we want to believe that they do not really exist. The film makes us confront them, makes us deal directly with a person evil enough to kill 99 helpless puppies for a simple fashion conceit. The effect is creepy enough to really make me feel for this family of dogs whose objective is only to live happily, and whose handicap is simple human greed and conceit. It is really very powerful.
And what about child viewers? Oddly enough, they will not be traumatized by this movie as much as they might be. The reason is that the battle between good and evil is treated with real gentleness, and the good characters have great moments in the film. A scene where it appears that one of Pongo's puppies is born dead is treated with tremendous sensitivity. Another scene where Pongo and Perdita agree to take along another 84 orphan dalmatians rather than leave them behind for Cruella also is one that makes us cheer. Also, much of the conflict is treated with a comic flair that puts us at ease with some actually quite disturbing situations, and seems to deflate Cruella's menace.
The result is that this is a great movie for kids. Evil Cruella is not sugar-coated but is put in proper perspective, a really impressive feat for a movie like this. At the same time, the movie is a thriller, a love story, a critique of the social class system, and an adventure film. It is a great movie.