Midway through The Devil Wears Prada 2, as Runway magazine faces the latest in a long line of challenges that threaten its future health and even its chances of survival as a publication, fed-up magazine Andy Sachs laments how corporations repackage mass media into smaller, cheaper, more efficient and less valuable reproductions. She’s too polite to say “encitification” (the buzzword that’s been applied to this trend on the Internet these days, especially when it comes to online platforms), but you can almost hear the word. It’s a brave idea to invoke in a sequel that aims to restore the glory of a beloved media property from 20 years ago.
The good news is that The Devil Wears Prada 2 was not intentionally made into a movie. This sequel is made with intelligence and respect for both its predecessor and the legions that still love it, working more as a tribute of sorts than a sequel, but despite featuring all the original talent, it faithfully recreates the comical and dramatic high notes from the first film with the same movement and rhythm. But by almost any metric, this is an inferior movie. It’s buoyed by the game’s performances, which are narratively, emotionally, and cinematically flat, yet still completely fail to wow. And in almost every way, it shows what has been taken from mainstream Hollywood filmmaking since 2006.
Let’s not overstate the standard set by The Devil Wears Prada, which debuted that summer as a smart, funny, fluffy studio sideshow. The film finished in second place at the box office in its opening weekend, if you recall, behind Superman Returns — in the pre-distribution era, when women-skewing comedies were relatively uncommon at multiplexes. David Frankel’s films were not masterpieces, but they had remarkable cultural staying power. Partly because of Meryl Streep’s deftly understated role as fashion magazine gorgon Miranda Priestly, modeled largely on Anna Wintour, whose straight-from-the-runway wardrobe fueled a million transformation fantasies, but also because the story of a brave intern clinging to a steep career ladder resonated. A generation of graduates entering a difficult job market. As such, it was both a fairy tale and a cautionary tale for certain millennials who held onto the film as a comfort movie of the time.
All of this means that it is entirely possible to imitate the artistic achievements of the original film. The sequel (also directed by Frankel and written by Aline Brosh McKenna) is mostly satisfying, so it could be imitated outright. However, replicating this intangible touchstone status is difficult. That’s because the new film, set in 2020 and set during a global recession, a global pandemic, and the ever-changing social media revolution that followed, similarly aims to capture the dangerous spirit of the moment. That’s clear from the opening scene, which reintroduces Andi (a sophisticated Anne Hathaway, no longer in a gaudy, ugly skirt) as the socially conscious investigative journalist she always wanted to be, collecting awards for her work at the fictional left-leaning paper New York Vanguard. Just when she and all of her colleagues are fired by text, yet another traditional publication bites the dust.
While this early turn will be greeted with a sigh that anyone in journalism will recognize, the pursuer is a less familiar figure. Andy was quickly headhunted as a highly paid new features editor at none other than Runway Magazine, and is currently weathering a PR storm over an article in which he falsely endorsed a sweatshop fast fashion label. If Andy is there to lend some serious journalistic credibility to a beleaguered brand, his relationship with his former tormentor Miranda is on ice. As arrogant and impossible to please as ever, she begins to challenge and belittle new women as if no time had passed at all.
Andy is tasked with securing an interview with the elusive tycoon Sasha Barnes (Lucy Liu, totally underutilized) in exchange for pursuing an unpublished Harry Potter manuscript. His quietly bitter rival Emily (Emily Blunt) is no longer a runway colleague but a coaxed Dior executive. And the threat to Miranda’s queenship comes not from her French editor but from a terminally unchic techie (BJ Novak) who wants to cut corners whenever possible.
But these are just placeholder plot points. The essential dynamics remain the same, so nostalgic folk can enjoy the first film’s cat office politics, the perpetually delicious chill of Streep’s deflating delivery (“You’re really…my favorite person,” she says in a cameo appearance). You can revel in the warmth that balances Stanley Tucci’s long-suffering creative director Nigel (says the super-celebrity with a calculated hesitation that easily dismisses the mediocre) and that still exists in Andy. Give tough love a pep talk at the most appropriate time.
As for Andy, she is still out of place, but now that she has grown authority, she is no longer such a vulnerable heroine, and therefore a less appealing heroine. She was also handed a frictionless first role in a romantic subplot with a blandly affable Australian contractor played by Colin From Account’s Patrick Bramall. However, he has more to do than Kenneth Branagh and is inexplicably wasted as Miranda’s doting husband. (Twenty years ago, he was in the process of filing for divorce, but now he’s a devoted wife’s man. Things can get better.) The stakes for the individual characters aren’t as high as in Runway itself. The film’s flashy third act, set in Milan, ultimately boils down to a battle for the soul of a magazine between several billionaires of varying degrees of moral virtue — quite true to life, perhaps, but nothing like a great drama.
There’s plenty to enjoy along the way, including Brosh McKenna’s funny and fragile dialogue and Molly Rogers’ costumed Birds of Paradise spectacle. However, it lacks the touch of baroque absurdity that haute couture guru Patricia Field brought to earlier films, as well as the crisp, sparkling looks of the first film that made the costumes stand out. Cinematographer Florian Ballhaus returns here, and the gray veils that hang over each scene of The Devil Wears Prada 2 illustrate just how much studio film lighting standards have changed in recent years. Miranda Priestley herself would certainly have something to say about this.
But ultimately, the film’s greatest joy is watching a seasoned professional do his job and do it well. None of the stars here are slackers, and their pairing and easy-to-restart chemistry make this sequel feel like a long time ago — even if it’s hard to imagine fans of the first film cherishing repeat viewings to quite the same extent. What also hasn’t changed is Streep’s easy MVP status. Her Miranda may be too familiar to be a threat by now, but the quiet, tearing economy with which she reads her lines, the glassy reservation of her body language, the layers of passive-aggressive meaning she condenses into a single arched eyebrow or a tight half-smile all invite a kind of awe in the presence of greatness. “Look, I love my job,” Miranda says with great sincerity, and Streep seems to do the same. And as this person who alternately entertains the breezy and deeply pessimistic is quick to remind us, work is nothing to take for granted.
