The Devil Wears Prada is a female revenge fantasy. The film is based upon Lauren Weisberger's novel which was inspired by her time as Anna Wintour's assistant at Vogue. It tells the story of how a nice, but ugly, fat girl (who isn't fat or ugly) comes into an office full of bitchy, anorexic, pretty girls and proves that not only is she better than them morally, she can also beat them that at their own game by losing weight (She goes from a size 6 to a size 4), learning about fashion and out dressing them.
Anne Hathaway stars as Andrea, the naive young girl who gets the job as second assistant to Miranda Priestly, editor of Runway magazine, played with brilliance by Meryl Streep. Hathaway plays wide-eyed well and she looks good in the clothes. She is however, no match for Streep's Miranda, who steals the movie. It isn't that Hathaway doesn't have charm or talent, but Streep, like Miranda at Runway, dominates the film. It is Miranda who gets the funniest lines as the demanding boss whose extreme demands go so far as to request Andrea obtain a copy of the next unpublished Harry Potter book for her twins. And yet, because this is Streep we some how never lose sight of Miranda's humanity.
In smaller roles, both Stanly Tucci and Emily Blunt provide great support. Tucci plays the magazine's fashion director, the only person at Runway who seems to take a liking to Andrea, perhaps not coincidently because he's one of the few employees who's not a woman. Blunt plays Miranda's long-suffering first assistant, and she gets laughs in every scene she appears in. "I'm on this new French diet," she tells Andrea at one point. "I don't eat anything and then when I feel as though I'm going to pass out, I eat a cube of cheese. I look terrific!"
What might put people off about this movie is that a light knowledge of the fashion industry is required to fully enjoy it, and yet most of the jokes are mocking that very same industry. So people who care too much about fashion might be offended and people who can't tell a Gucci from a Gobana aren't going to get all the jokes.
I never read the book this was based upon, but my wife has. A quick question and answer with her about the differences between the two, revealed what I already expected. Like most book to movie translation, the story has been Hollywoodized. Just a brief example is how at the end of the book Andrea sells all of the free haute couture she has picked up over the course of the story and ends up with almost $40,000. In the movie, Andrea ends up giving the clothes away just to continue the "I'm a good person" theme. There are many other differences she mentioned, but suffice to say, my wife loved the book, but was disappointed in the movie.
The Devil Wears Prada is a chick-flick, but there are things about it that a heterosexual man can enjoy. The way Anne Hathaway looks, Emily Blunt's comedy, but mostly Meryl Streep's performance as Miranda, which is as terrific as you'd expect from the veteran actress.
