Hollywood came up with one of the best trailers of the year in line with the release of David Frankel’s ‘The Devil wears Prada’, based on the best selling novel by Lauren Weisberger, and straight away it went on my list of films to see.
Thankfully, this was one film that lived up to the previews’ promise. The film worked wonderfully well as an fascinating battle of wills between two very different characters. Streep is wonderful as the ruthless fashion magazine editor (of Runway magazine) Miranda Priestly who has everyone shaking in their boots. Anne Hathaway plays Miranda’s nervous new assistant, Andy Sachs.
At first, it seems like there will be no contest at all, because it looks like Miranda will eat Andy for breakfast. Andy walks each day into the office looking as timid as anything and with little to no fashion sense. Simply put, Miranda enjoys squelching people and Andy is just next in line. Miranda’s first assistant Emily doesn’t think that Andy will last out the first week.
A major turning point is when Andy, conscious of her daggy image, enlists the support of colleague Nigel and goes shopping for a new work wardrobe. When Andy walks into the office the following morning, she turns everybody’s head around, including Miranda’s. Andy has announced that she is no pushover. By the end of the film Andy proves to be a formidable, independent woman in her own right.
The main features of ‘The Devil wears Prada’ were its breakneck New York pace and feel, Aline Brosh McKenna’s witty, incisive screenplay, a pounding contemporary soundtrack, some great shots of New York and Paris, a showcase of some of the latest fashions, strong performances from the cast, and a stylish, resonant ending.
Merryl Streep was wonderful as the haughty, intimidating Priestly. The great Streep goes to town playing a super bitch, hyper driven career woman.
Anne Hathaway’s (‘Brokeback Mountain’, ‘The Princess Diaries’) portrayal of Andy Sachs was on the money. Hathaway delivered a touching portrayal of an unsure young woman who grows as a person tremendously during the course of the film.
English actress Emily Blunt (‘My Summer of Love’) impressed as Miranda’s first assistant, Emily. Blunt had a strong celluloid presence, and left audiences in no doubt as to the type of character she was playing. Here was the prototype of an attractive, sophisticated, ambitious, private school, catty, snobbish young British woman.
Stanley Tucci (‘Shall We Dance?’, ‘Maid In Manhatten’) gave a great, natural performance as Miranda’s camp, sophisticated, urbane fashion director, Nigel.
‘The Devil wears Prada’ was so good that I’m sure that it will make it into many people’s private collections.