By Joseph L. Garcia, Senior Reporter
Movie Review
The Devil Wears Prada 2
Directed by David Frankel
WHEN The Devil Wears Prada got here out in 2006, it was the height of a silver age of magazine publishing. The busy, bridge-burning life cushioned by freebies and proximity to power wasn’t only aspirational — to some people, it was real. In the identical chunk of time (the late 2000s to the early 2010s, right before the explosion of social media that modified all our lives), documentaries that were a solution to The Devil Wears Prada purported to indicate the fact behind the movie, and sold that life as something we must always all want. “Don’t be ridiculous, Andrea. Everybody wants this. Everybody desires to be us,” Miranda (probably the most powerful fashion editor of her day, played by Meryl Streep) told Andy (the newbie who was all of us played by Anne Hathaway).
Twenty years have passed since this exchange, and it’s laughable now how… well, who desires to be us? A cousin once looked me in the attention at dinner, he who worked in influencer marketing, and told me, “But print is dead.” (In fact, the movie’s Runway magazine and my very own profession are separated by several layers of power and the veil of reality, but you get my point.)
That is the changing media landscape that each Andy and Miranda now must face in The Devil Wears Prada 2, which we saw this week through a special screening by Globe. Andy is now a respected journalist in her own right, and Miranda is holding on to her power by just her nails. The primary movie opens with Andy brushing her teeth to KT Tunstall’s “Suddenly I See,” the friendly guitar strumming reflecting the innocence of each Andy, and the times. Now, this second movie opens with Dua Lipa’s “End of An Era” (but still with Andy brushing her teeth) — and that principally signals the movie’s plot.
Andy wins an award in journalism, and in a beat, her whole team loses their jobs on account of corporate layoffs. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Miranda places her trust in a quick fashion company that seems to depend on sweatshop labor, and thus becomes fodder for the social media mob’s “cancellation” (an idea unknown within the years of the primary movie). Andy is hired by Runway (bypassing Miranda) to unravel this morality problem (thus making a press release on how business now has to run on some type of scale of purity). The remainder of the film shows this: how the lives of several people in publishing, living their dream, are hinged on finance, corporate decisions, and website hits.
Emily (the primary movie’s witty assistant played by Emily Blunt) got off the boat before it began sinking: she plays a supporting role as a fashion executive with whom Miranda now must bargain with with the intention to save the publication. Nigel, Miranda’s right hand, is played still by Stanley Tucci, helping Miranda navigate through the humiliations of her reduced power (no more silver Benzes, just Ubers; no more private jets, just seats in coach).
Emily works for Dior — named within the movie, something we mention because in the primary movie, designers were afraid to be within the film for fear of retribution from Vogue editor Anna Wintour, supposedly the inspiration for Miranda Priestly (the book the movie was based on was written by one in all her many former assistants, Lauren Weisberger). In the quilt story for this month’s Vogue, Ms. Wintour appears next to her film incarnation, Ms. Streep in costume as Miranda — so we guess she’s given her cool assent to the film. Within the interview for the quilt, Ms. Streep said, “Well, everybody was afraid of Anna on the primary one, so we couldn’t find any clothes. No person would give us any clothes.” This silent assent has given the film a lot: it allowed more designers and celebrities to make cameos — Donatella Versace, Marc Jacobs, Lady Gaga, even; but then, also one in all the Bush daughters.
The style is in fact, on point: we saw Chanel, Dior, perhaps vintage Halston. The garments do seem less “real” though: the style in the primary film could sometimes border on the ridiculous, but perhaps due to increased support from designers in the brand new film, everybody seemed a bit too dressed up for day jobs. Still, while it chips away at realism, it helps sell the fantasy.
The movie is shot with less care in comparison with the primary one, perhaps an indication of this era’s more frenetic eye. For instance: a sequence with Lady Gaga acting at a fashion show, which ought to be one in all the splashiest scenes, left the attention specializing in nothing and every little thing. Several scenes where the camera should linger saw quick, confusing pacing.
The acting — well, there’s a reason why they’re all there for the sequel. They’ve only gotten higher, 20 years since.
There are several laughs within the movie — while we’re speculated to sympathize with poor Miranda losing her power, we laugh at her retorts that must be shushed by her assistant within the age of smartphones. “What can’t I say? Methadone?” Emily continues to be as cracking smart as a whip, and even in one other language: in one in all her scenes, she shouts at Donatella Versace in a restaurant in indignant, fluent Italian.
We do note, nonetheless, that there are less iconic scenes on this movie. No cerulean speech (though the sweater is seen within the movie), no coat-flinging sequence (Miranda has to hold up her own coat, as a gag to her reduced circumstances); hardly anything. There have been attempts by each Ms. Streep and Ms. Blunt to have monologues as enduring as in the primary one, but they only don’t land the identical way.
Perhaps the emotional resonance with the film can only come to someone who has lived that life — and in these times, what number of can those be? Oddly enough, our closest parallel is the Queen Mother from The Crown complaining about having to fulfill commoners in S2E5. “Small wonder we make such a fuss about curtsies, protocol, and precedent. It’s all we now have left. The last scraps of armor as we go from ruling, to reigning… to being nothing in any respect.”
It’s still an amazing movie to observe though — it’s an amazing snapshot of what we’ve gained and lost in those 20 years. My seatmate throughout the movie said, “That’s not a warning. It’s already happened.”