The Devil Wears Prada (2006) is one of those films which, if chanced upon when flicking television channels, I will always stick with for a bit. It has zing. It has bite. It has memorable lines that I can remember without having to look them up. (‘Are we going to a hideous skirt convention?’) But mostly it has Meryl Streep as Miranda Priestly, the wonderfully toxic editor-in-chief of Runway fashion magazine. She is still terrific. But while the landscape has moved on, the characters have remained the same and halfway through I started to drift. Another blow is that it’s become more sentimental and less satirical. In other words – and I hate to be the one to say it – it’s not as good as the original.
Where are we, 20 years on? Priestly is still the editor-in-chief at Runway and still poison. If you’ve yet to be acquainted, think Violet Crawley from Downton with some Stalin thrown in. Nigel (Stanley Tucci) remains her art director and is kind despite his snarky put-downs. My favourite this time: ‘Look what TJ Maxx dragged in.’ Emily (Emily Blunt), who was once Miranda’s first assistant, is still a tour de force of bitchy scorn but is now head of advertising at Dior. And Andy (Anne Hathaway)? In the original she was the dowdy out-of-towner in the lumpy blue sweater who we had to believe was fat and plain. (I should be so dowdy, fat and plain.) Always high-minded and earnest, she was Miranda’s second assistant, but she is now a proper journalist on a proper newspaper. Take
that, Runway.
Both the original writer (Aline Brosh McKenna) and director (David Frankel) are back on board and they open the sequel, like the first film, with a going-to-work montage, with plenty of winks to the original. As Andy walks down the street, for instance, she passes a market stall selling two belts that look nearly identical. (If you know, you know.) Her newspaper, however, has folded, so now she is out of a job. Meanwhile, across town, Runway is in trouble. Aside from having to compete in the digital age, it’s inadvertently run an article that promotes sweatshops. Advertisers are up in arms. (Bulgari is furious, and Fendi; they must care deeply about sweatshops.) Unbeknownst to Miranda, Andy is hired as the new features editor to help reclaim the title’s respect. When the two meet again in the office Andy is all gushing friendliness while Miranda turns to Nigel to ask in that deadly monotone: ‘Do I know her?’ Does Andy never learn? She may be high-minded but her IQ isn’t that high. I very much doubt that her four-part series on ‘the internal workings of the Federal Reserve’ was ever a must-read whatever anyone might say.
The plotting feels effortful. Miranda may be ousted – again. Miranda sets Andy impossible tasks – again. Last time it was acquiring a Harry Potter manuscript for her young twin daughters and this time it’s securing an interview with a particular celebrity. Where are those twin girls? No idea, but Miranda does have a nice if inexplicable boyfriend. He’s a violinist – a non-role for Kenneth Branagh but he does get to wear cute little scarves.
There’s plenty of fashion porn, a cameo from Lady Gaga, and many famous faces to spot in the crowd: Tina Brown, Donatella Versace, Amelia Dimoldenberg. But when everyone is in on the joke, is it over? The films are based on Vogue’s legendary editor Anna Wintour, who ignored the first film but has now embraced the second. Streep is wonderful, but we have seen the performance before. The ending, meanwhile, ties everything up in a ribbon. The colour of the ribbon? Might cerulean still be in? (If you know, you know.)
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