Review of The Devil Wears Prada
Year: 2006 Reviewer: Chris Docker
Meryl Streep has complained that there are not enough deeply committed roles for women her age, and effectively she is reduced to playing heartless old women. But if The Devil Wears Prada is anything to go by, it is a refreshing opportunity for Streep to reinvent herself, in a style that has a light surety of touch without the embarrassing lingering 'Oscar-worthy' moments that had become almost a cliché of her older films.
Streep plays Miranda Priestly, the head of a fashion magazine called Runway which is the approximate equivalent to Vogue. Not only is the setting convincing (with several real life top models), but this witty, light-hearted comedy is casually decorated with everything from Prada and Galliano to an especially designed Valentino dress (Valentino has a small cameo as himself) and Chanel's 2006 couture collection made available exclusively for the film.
Meet Anne Hathaway (Brokeback Mountain) as Andy, a bright young graduate and would-be journalist. Struggling to get a job in her chosen career, she applies to work at Runway - a magazine she doesn't read, run by a grande dame of the fashion world she's never heard of and who is guarded by career-minded Emily. She is, in the words of Runway's fashion director, a 'sad little person'. She has a job a million girls would kill for, doesn't realise it, and looks totally out of place. Her boyfriend jokes that it must have been a telephone interview.
You could be forgiven for thinking this was going to be a re-working of Working Girl, where the brains and flair of a dumb junior win the day, yet The Devil Wears Prada is neither as slapstick nor as simplistic as the earlier hit. Streep is an ogre, but not a bad one, just supercharged, brilliant at her job, and something of a legend. Anne Hathaway, on the other hand, wears smart clothes from cheap shops - at least until she gets the predictable make-over - and her head and heart is lured by fashion rather than finding their life-goal knee deep in Jimmy Choo boots. Avoiding the devil is not so much about who and what but about being true to yourself. Possibly not since Funny Face, the Audrey Hepburn and Fred Astaire classic, have the irresistible dynamics of the fashion world been so glamorously, temptingly and captivatingly portrayed.
Director David Frankel is better known for several episodes of Sex and the City, and here carries that show's flair for believability of New York's fast movers to new heights. The script has so many cuttingly funny one-liners that you never get a moment to notice it has very little depth. Acting and characterisation is first class, there's a great soundtrack that always seems in perfect keeping with the plot, and the page-perfect ending is neither cheesy nor trite. Streep's greatest moment is perhaps the time we see her without make-up, going through a difficult personal time, but it is still an ensemble performance with the other two leads, something that has served her well ever since her remarkable triple billing in The Hours.
It is an image of power and materialism that has no bad guys - or women - only ones that want to get to the top. Director David Frankel comments that fashion "is a constant pursuit for reinvention. It's both what's so great and so awful about fashion. For fashion to succeed, it has to make all of us feel that everything we have and wear is inadequate." This battle of the glamazons takes no prisoners, and even Andy's scoffing friends are mesmerised when she hands out cast-off designer goods. Faust has never looked so good. As for Andy, we are kept guessing whether she sold her soul the day she put on her first pair of Jimmy Choos.
Rating: 8/10
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