And yet Anne Hathaway is surprisingly good as Andy, and actually carries this clumsily conceived wreck. She's not conventionally pretty, certainly not in the early scenes, but she glamorizes beautifully. I especially like the Rococo silhouette her sloping shoulders give her. Even better, Hathaway makes Andy recognizably the same girl throughout, dressed up or down — a bit gosling-eyed and gawky, but reasonably centered and down-to-earth. She's believably nice without being yucky and has a few wonderful moments of comic teasing involving a Marc Jacobs bag and then a high-end lacy bra.
The Devil Wears Prada is especially disappointing coming from David Frankel, whose first feature, Miami Rhapsody (1995) starring Sarah Jessica Parker, is arguably the finest American comedy with a sole female protagonist. I'm not sure how The Devil Wears Prada could be better without a radical overhaul, but perhaps its success will open doors for Frankel to do more distinctive work in the future.
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Article comments
1 - Aaman
Interesting - I wouldnt watch the film myself, but glad you did and reviewed it too - please do cross-post this to Desicritics
2 - Alan Dale
Thanks, Aaman. Yeah, I can't really recommend the movie but it was kind of interesting, if not challenging, to dissect.
3 - Steve
Well, though I have no interest in the fashion industry myself, I did find this movie rather intriguing, and was curious as to how it was all going to work out.
I think the reason we did not see the mechanics behind the takeover until the day of, was because the purpose of the movie was to show the story through Andy's more innocent, naive eyes, and I found that effective in drawing one into the plot (knowing nothing about the fashion industry myself, I sometimes felt as bewildered as she did lol).
The gay character was stereotypical, and the boss was perhaps a little over the top in how she treated her staff, almost like a caricature. However, Streep managed to make the character one where you wondered if she would undergo any evolution from her usual ways of treating people, and by the end, you were rooting for her to have learned something new about dealing with people. I wont give away the ending as to whether she did or not, but point is, you were rooting for her, no mean feat considering how awfully she treated people.
It was refreshing to see a decent character like Andy, struggle with the demands of the job without making her character unsympathetic. I thought Hathaway did very well in her role.
I think her friends' response to her at times was as much focused on how things appeared, rather than how they actually were, amusing considering fashion is all about appearances, and that's all they could see (though the boyfriend did have some legitimate beefs with her lol).
Re. the boss's kids, well, they were obviously spoiled rotten, and parents of kids like that are usually blind to it, so it's no surprise she would view tham as 'vulnerable'.
Good acting by all (the gay character was stereotypical as I said, but not the actor's fault).
Bottom line, I reckon if you're looking for a raucous comedy, you'll be disappointed, but if you're interested in seeing a comedy drama about a young, new employee deal with an extremely difficult and demanding older boss, you might find it rewarding.
Out of all the movies I've seen this year (and most I have enjoyed to varying degrees), this is the only one I'm still thinking about a week after seeing it.
4 - Alan Dale
Thanks for the comment, Steve. I'm not with you on this one, but I think your take on the movie is exactly how the moviemakers would like the movie to be experienced.
5 - GV
Alan, We all are entitled to opinions. On this one, I would very much agree with Steve (#3). The film is extremely good considering what the industry is making these days. Not sure what level of reality depth you expect from a fiction comedy which, by the way, is based on a published bestseller, hence much less freedom for the script. Review the academy award winner “Gladiator”. A brilliant movie, but if you analyse characters, each one is the order of magnitude more unbelievable than Andy or Miranda. Yet, people loved it. Myself included. This one is funny, clever and pretty, like most of the women appearing in it. I agree the end was “politically correct”, thus completely wrong. A person earns a one in a million chance to get into the world of people who do their job well and are generously rewarded for it, and then realise that is not what you want. That's naive but that's the rule of the industry that is actually much worse than the fashion.
6 - Alan Dale
Thanks for the comment. Yes, everyone is entitled to his opinion. When you justify Gladiator by saying that "people loved it," however, it makes me wonder what function criticism could possibly serve for you. People loved it, you included, end of discussion.
7 - GV
Ok, I accept that my comment on “Gladiator” was too broad. But was not far of the mark. What I was trying to say was, your views, mostly negative, have been focused on the credibility of the story and of the characters. Generally speaking, it is not the primary purpose of a comedy to be credible or the characters to be believable. It is to make us laugh. Hence, your review should be focused mostly around that. Just the same, you could criticize “Gladiator” for absence of comical!
I think Devil Wears Prada is worth every cent of the ticket cost, and you might have discouraged some people from seeing it. That said, it is not going to change anyone’s life.
8 - Alan Dale
Thanks for the follow-up, GV, but "credibility"--that is, measuring the events in the movie by our experience in the real world--is not the focus of my remarks about the movie. I call it a romance of temptation, which is very far from critiquing it as a work of realism. (Much of the press coverage I read did just that--e.g., asking whether a secretary would be allowed to dress herself from the magazine's wardrobe.) My point is that the romance is internally incoherent, i.e., it claims to show us one thing but is in fact showing us something else. That's what I mean when I write: "If [Andy] changes on the inside we don't see it, and yet the movie treats her like a cutthroat sell-out." It's incoherent in its own, admittedly fantastic, terms.
9 - Dani
I know this is old, but I've only recently seen this movie. Your review is the only review I've read that really nails why this movie just didn't work. I thought it was well-acted for the most part. I think it was better than the book, although the book was more congruent. I think Meryl Streep definitely earned her Oscar nomination. However, at the end I was left dissatisfied and you got it right. It's supposed to be a temptation story but Andy never succumbs, not even a little bit! She's actually a great gal. Even Job got a little too haughty. Yet Andy still has to be humbled/humiliated in the end. I actually wanted her to embrace her choices and seize the opportunity.
I'm admittedly a fan of movies like "Can't Buy Me Love" and even lowbrow stuff like "The New Kid". So that's where I'm coming from (not Faust and All About Eve but I feel you). I'm quite familiar with this storyline. Good kid gets a taste of the high life, forgets about his old friends and his old values, and has to experience a comeuppance. I've always wondered why couldn't the good kid stay good and likable, even when faced with great opportunity and challenge? Are all of us good kids out here bound to choose between mediocrity and forsaking our values? Well finally Andy comes along, and she actually DOESN'T change.
Time and time again she bends over backwards to please highly ungrateful people. Her unambitious, unappreciative and self-centered boyfriend. Her artist friend, who shows nothing but scorn for Andy's own career ambitions while Andy still shows up to support her opening and give her fabulous gifts. And caustic, vile Emily, who couldn't have gone to Paris anyway. Yet people who actually do deserve some gratitude get precious little. Like Christian, who actually seems like quite a catch for most of the movie.
Also Miranda, who is quite sympathetic, but not because she looks bad without makeup and cries for her kids. It's because she is brave and intelligent and yes, deeply flawed. Andy should have learned to maximize the strengths she and Miranda share in common. She was already avoiding the weaknesses.
I really enjoyed your review, and I've bookmarked your site.
10 - Alan Dale
Thanks for the comment, Dani. I seem to have spoken for a (discerning--we'd like to think!) minority of the audience. My guess is that the problems with The Devil Wears Prada will become more apparent over time. That's provided, of course, the movie doesn't achieve "classic" status, which seems to make later viewers accept a movie as a model--flaws and all--and to prevent critical thinking altogether. My latest pet peeve on this score is To Kill a Mockingbird. Forget that Gregory Peck is completely miscast as a silver-tongued, deep-southern lawyer, how can people in the 21st century not cringe at the way the African-American defendant's character is conceived?