Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway in "The Devil Wears
Prada."
As legendary Vogue editor Diana Vreeland used to say in the era before
daunting editor Anna Wintour, who inspired the character of terrifying editor
Miranda Priestly, who, in the yummy, carb-lite fashion-world fantasy "The Devil
Wears Prada," rules the fictitious magazine Runway like a magnificently cruel
empress -- well, as DV used to say, People Are Talking About ... Meryl Streep.
Streep is Priestly, and I mean that from the topmost swoop of her divine,
leonine silver coif to the polished tip of her pointiest Manolo. As she throws
her PETA-disapproved fur jackets around, she exudes fearsome power with every
shriveling glance she tosses over the tops of her reading glasses, every
despotic command she murmurs.
Streep has noodled around with comedy before -- air kisses are in order for
her great silliness in the "Lemony Snicket" movie, and her hilarious ballbusting
in the remake of "The Manchurian Candidate." But we haven't seen our Meryl like
this until now, relishing the role as if it were the swellest Best of Everything
achievement award a 13-time Oscar nominee could receive.
And it is. Lording it over rosebud-pretty Anne Hathaway as Andrea "Andy"
Sachs, a new assistant spectacularly (and sitcom-ly) wrong for the job
(Downy-fresh Andy's got no interest in fashion, has never heard of Miranda
Priestly, and wishes she were doing Important Journalism at The New Yorker), the
seasoned star gently, graciously, and firmly steals the picture away from her
younger colleague.
For which thanks are due. It's not that Hathaway isn't gorgeous, a vision of
ruby lips and brunet go-go bangs, her pony figure swathed in the killer wardrobe
Andy learns to appreciate. But because Andy is such an impossible construct -- a
girl too pretty to have badness stick to her, a manipulative innocent -- the
whole giddy premise teeters on suspended disbelief as if on a skyscraper-high
stiletto heel.
Who am I kidding? The story is glossy junk begat of just-plain junk anyway:
Lauren Weisberger, who wrote the hiss-and-tell roman a clef best-seller on which
the picture is based, was herself an assistant to Wintour, and her novel is
greasy with pride in her own "integrity" and disdain for both her boss and the
magazine whose paychecks she was presumably not forced at gunpoint to collect.
The movie "Prada," directed by HBO regular David Frankel (he's helmed
"Entourage," which helps explain Adrian Grenier's appearance as Andy's true-blue
boyfriend), defangs most of Weisberger's crass opportunistic glee, but the whole
thing is still more of a pop-culture sow's ear than a Fendi purse, with the
laugh-out-loud spangly bits more likely the detail work of uncredited funny
fellows like Paul Rudnick than the sensibility of credited screenwriter Aline
Brosh McKenna ("Laws of Attraction"). Blameless Andy is first too pure for the
Priestly cult, then seduced, then pure again at the end, only with a better
wardrobe?
Whatever, sister -- it's Streep who pops our flashbulbs.
EW Grade: B