The Devil Wears Prada

The Devil Wears Prada, comedy, USA, 2006; D: David Frankel, S: Anne Hathaway, Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt, Stanley Tucci

New York. In order to accumulate some work experience, young Andrea accepts an ungrateful job as the second assistant of Miranda Priestly, editor-in-chief of the fashion magazine "Runaway". However, her boss turns out to be a nightmare - Miranda tends to be demanding beyond the tolerable, exhausting her employees by sending them pick up lunch, her wardrobe or make an appointment for her. Just as Andrea starts feeling hopeless, she adjusts by wearing wardrobe and doing chores Miranda would like in advance. Slowly, she turns into a conformed, obedient fashion worker, but alienates her friends. In Paris, when Miranda tells her she reminds her of her, Andrea quits and returns to her boyfriend Nate.

If there was ever a movie that captured the feel of a nightmare job, then it is "The Devil Wears Prada". This comedy achieves a golden standard at realistically depicting mobbing and pointless bossing around only to show employees how they are inferior - Meryl Streep won a Golden Globe as best actress in a comedy or musical for her performance as "dictator" Miranda, though charming Anne Hathaway is the real star of the movie. By setting the story in the fashion industry, this could have been a field day at pocking fun for Daria Morgendorffer and Jane Lane, but it somehow leaned too much towards shallowness and conformity, until the end when the main heroine overturns that. The story actually tries to claim that fashion is art, when it is not art, it is just a business. There are some fine examples of satirical and sharp humor, though it is too sparse to outweigh those too serious approaches of the subject in question.

Grade:++