The Devil Wears Prada: Why You Might Be Caught Dead Wearing Last Year’s Dress
The plot’s as thin as the models who grace the opening sequences of The Devil Wears Prada but does it really matter when you’re hanging out with the world’s archetypal beauties? What’s a plot anyway, besides a hook to hang your hat upon? Pert and preppy Andy Sachs, played fetchingly by Anne Hathaway, lands a job in the fashion industry as one of two young executive assistants to fashion doyenne Miranda Priestly.
Despite the frumpy get-up and studied indifference to the fashion industry, you know right away that Andy’s going to rise in the ranks, meet the challenges, flex her fashion muscles and possibly sacrifice her sad-sack boyfriend on the altar of blind ambition.
Actually, The Devil Wears Prada doesn’t have such pedestrian concerns as the deeper meaning of life and love and yet, in this age of pious breast-beating, it comes as something of a relief to see people driven to passionate distraction by the conventionally attired and clichÃ?©-muttering minions of mediocrity. Not that I have ever worn Prada! Suffice it to say that there are still several of those little alligator decorated polo shirts in my own closet. But you’ve got to hand it to Miranda Priestly, the self-ordained royal of the cruel fashion empire who doesn’t bother to fire unless her barbs are sure to go straight to the heart.
“The details of your incompetence do not interest me,” she says to the apologetic and bumbling assistant she’s hired on a hunch.
Or “Find me that piece of paper I had in my hand yesterday morning!” she commands haughtily.
Meryl Streep appeared on one of those go-the-rounds network morning shows the week before the film was released. Did she like playing Miranda Priestly in the film, The Devil Wears Prada? asked her vapid interviewer. The smiling, gentle Streep gave the kind of answer that makes her the perfect actress in this role as in so many others. She said she ‘didn’t like it,’ that she wasn’t at all like Miranda Priestly, and that it was very hard to play such a ‘horrid person’. To me, that was a puzzling and baffling moment. One applauds her seeming candor at the same time one questions her apparent sincerity.
Stanley Tucci, Emily Blunt, and Adrian Grenier round out the cast of important characters. Tucci’s the respected colleague of Miranda, respected and manipulated as well, particularly in the end when he’s subject to a round of baseball-like trading in the never-ending sport of gamesmanship and fashion ascendancy. Grenier’s adorable and cuddly but going nowhere as the boyfriend who aspires to be a chef in a bow to common humanity. There’s no end to puppy-dog eyes as he watches his beloved corrupted by the world of appearance.
But then again, if appearances weren’t so important, a plainer actor might have landed the part of Andy’s boyfriend. I suppose that is one of the embedded conundrums of the film, for there would have been lots of plain vanilla actors dying to play across the lovely Anne Hathaway, especially when she gets caught up in the fashion world. Her transformation into a vision of bright loveliness is astonishing as she catches the brass ring of fashion sense and sensuality.
Emily Blunt’s character is engaging as a young woman who can’t be as mean-spirited or sang-froid as she would have you believe. Smoldering beneath a chilled veneer, Emily expresses continuous disappointment in Andy’s low-couture mentality. With many a deprecating remark delivered in a British high-toned accent, Emily experiences her greatest disappointment when a cold prevents her from going along with Amanda to the yearly Parisian fashion fete which sets the trends for the following year. Guess who takes her place?
No story of World Capital Fashion would be complete without underlying conspiracies, and this film cleverly accomplishes this by imbedded innuendo of Amanda’s impending fall from grace. But just when you’re convinced the plot might actually head in that direction, Amanda captures the giant wave of publicity at the Paris fashion event of the year when, by her own superior insights, intuitions, and sheer boldness, she once more demonstrates why this is not amateur night at the annual Paris fashion soiree.
The Devil does, indeed, Wear Prada.
