- Director: David Frankel
- Screenplay: Aline Brosh McKenna
- Cast: Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt, Stanley Tucci
- Cinematography: Florian Ballhaus
- Editing: Andrew Marcus
- Score: Theodore Shapiro
- Genre: Comedy-drama
- Runtime: 119 minutes
As much as I enjoyed the original ‘The Devil Wears Prada‘, I do have to question the necessity for a sequel. Andy (Hathaway) had survived the toxic sphere of Miranda Priestley (Streep) and grown into her own person. This season’s trend: the notion of change. It comes in various forms, meaning the plot is an unfocused scattering of ideas.
Physical media is dying out; hard copies of magazines are a thing of the past. Everything is online these days. The way we consume information has evolved – we don’t read, we scroll. The command the old guard has on the fashion world is diminishing. Miranda Priestley isn’t as young as she once was. She’s regarded as “a relic”, “a dinosaur” (would male editors be referred to by such terms?). The current climate is less forgiving. Miranda has found herself in the midst of a controversy regarding the use of sweatshops in the fashion industry. Not directly her fault but guilty by association. In strolls a confident (yet recently laid off) Andy to redeem Runway’s tarnished reputation with her ‘expertise’. How the tables have turned.
Some things stay the same – Miranda is just as unmannerly as before, though with this shift in power dynamic, she feels less formidable; a queen on a rotting throne. Emily Blunt (as Emily Charlton, now a senior executive at Dior) still has that hilarious deadpan wit and Stanley Tucci (playing Nigel) is as dapper as ever.
It’s not a patch on the previous film but there were huge Manolo Blahniks to fill. It is great to see the foursome act together onscreen again. Streep in particular; it’s her first live-action role on the silver screen in five years. The actors’ wardrobes are très chic and everyone looks a million bucks.
That’s all.
My rating: 7 /10
SilverScreen 