Hilarious, fast paced and deliciously wicked, The Devil Wears Prada is a modern-day Cinderella tale that skewers the arbiters of fashion taste and their insular little universe of designer shows and reed-thin models.
Director David Frankel, whose TV credits include Sex and the City, and writer Aline Brosh McKenna have brought Lauren Weisberger's best seller to back-stabbing life as it follows the harrowing career of a novice, unfashionable young woman who becomes an assistant to the icily demanding Miranda Priestly, editor of a world-renowned fashion magazine and an international arbiter of taste. Weisberger's book is said to have used Vogue editor Anna Wintour as its Miranda model. And although everyone denies that, her book and this film take aim at the pettiness and kowtowing that is a great part of the fashion business.
Anne Hathaway, once of The Princess Diaries, here has the Cinderella role of Andrea "Andy" Sachs, a newly minted college graduate who gets a job as the assistant to high-fashion priestess Miranda at Runway magazine despite her dumpy clothes, her size-6 frame and her disinterest in fashion. Andy hopes to use the job as a stepping stone to greater things in journalism. Along the way to that lofty goal, however, her ideals are corrupted as she becomes seduced by the glamour and the self-importance of high fashion, nearly losing her way.
Hathaway is the character one identifies with, but it's Meryl Streep's Miranda who becomes the character we love to hate. Imperious and regally dismissive, one of Miranda's withering stares can force a designer to change his entire line or, in Andy's case, prod her out of her dowdy schoolgirl skirts and sensible shoes and into something sheer and black with accessorized stiletto heels.
"She is not happy unless every one around her is panicked, nauseous and suicidal," Andy explains to her faithful longtime boyfriend, Nate (Adrian Grenier). He encourages her to quit after some rough going in the trenches at Runway. But Andy plods on, slowly turning from Miranda's lowliest serf to her handmaiden, getting by on her smarts and her ability to pull the rabbit out of the hat for Miranda whose demands grow increasingly impossible to meet.
A running gag is Miranda's morning arrivals, her heavy coat and heavier handbag tossed onto Andy's desk with a clunk; expecting that Andy has already left a cup of very hot coffee on her desk.
There's a pecking order at Runway and, at the start, Andy is low woman on this lofty totem pole, a fact that Miranda's first assistant, Emily (Emily Blunt), takes immense pleasure in reminding her. If Miranda is the queen, Emily sees herself as the principal lady in waiting or, as Andy views her, the wicked stepsister. Emily delights in making catty put-downs of Andrea's wardrobe to her face, making sure Andrea knows how unimportant she is and how self-important Emily is.
It's an office that's ruled by fear, but slowly, against her better judgment, Andy tries to fit in. She gets help from Miranda's key magazine designer, Nigel (Stanley Tucci). At first, like all the others, he dismisses Andy's wardrobe as a hopeless cause. As a size 6 in a world of reed-thin 0s and 2s, Andrea is known as "the fat girl." But the long-suffering Nigel is taken with Andrea's savvy and eventually becomes her fairy godfather, raiding the Runway racks to find stylish clothes and turning this ugly duckling into a swan under his tutelage. In a very clever sequence Andy is seen walking briskly on her way to work. Every time she is hidden for a second behind a car or a newsstand or a wide pole, she reappears on the other side wearing a different outfit.
Tucci walks a fine line as Nigel. He is flamboyant -- dressing in smartly tailored clothes; wearing an enormous ring; knowing the ins and outs of all the top designers and their wares the way some men know baseball stats -- without being overtly gay. As a confidant to Miranda and a key player in her schemes -- or so he likes to think -- he has sacrificed his personal life on the altar of high fashion. In the end Nigel is a wistful, touching figure as is, surprisingly enough, Miranda herself.
Streep is self-satisifed in her power and perks, yet never making an outward show of the immense pleasure she takes in being the queen bee, the one who can kill a designer's new line or anoint him as the next great thing. Like her underlings, she's a slave to fashion, making certain that what she and they wear is up-to-the-minute new . . . or, better yet, a step or two ahead of the ever-evolving fashion curve.
Streep has a marvelous sense of comic timing, knowing how a dismissive glance is worth more than a page of ranting dialogue. It's a funny, caustic performance and yet, later in the film, she allows us to peer behind Miranda's icy facade in unguarded moments that show the devil who wears Prada is indeed all too human and vulnerable.
Hathaway is the victim -- sweet and naive -- who eventually turns the table and blossoms. Yet despite our initial sympathy for the underdog, it turns out to be nothing for the audience to cheer about. We worry about the cost Andy's makeover has taken on her ideals and happiness. Innocence lost.
To work for Miranda, and to be on call to her every minute of the day in order to cater to her every whim, is to give up one's personal life. The glitz and the fashion shows and Paris and fancy parties are all fine, but they threaten to leave poor Nate and Andrea's other longtime friends out in the cold. In her quandary, she finds herself pursued by a handsome man (Simon Baker) who may hold the key to both her and Runway's future.
Frankel keeps this stew of snootiness and back-stabbing plots bubbling madly. The Devil Wears Prada is furiously funny and clever, yet manages to find its heart in the unlikeliest places. And that will leave you, and some of its characters, walking on air.
januson@projo.com / 401-277-7276
*****
The Devil Wears Prada
Starring: Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Stanley Tucci, Emily Blunt, Simon Baker, Adrian Grenier.
Rated: PG-13, contains adult themes.
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