In The Devil Wears Prada, Anne Hathaway plays idealistic newbie to the ruthless world of fashion to Meryl Streep's powerful, barbed, fashion deity slash dragon lady. Andy Sachs (Hathaway) is a naïve young woman who moves to New York right after graduating university to start building a career as a journalist. She figures that before she can even break into The New York Times, she has to get job experience elsewhere first, so she sends out her resume and fortuitously lands a job "a million girls would die for" in one of New York's biggest fashion magazines as second assistant to Miranda Priestly (Streep), editor, er, editrix of fashion bible Runway.
The fluke turns into a fiasco turns into a fight and then turns into wonderful flight for mousy journalist-wannabe Andy. But first, how exactly is a girl to survive in the fashion industry if she doesn't even know exactly who Miranda is in the fashion world, on top of the other things she doesn't know about fashion (like Gabbana in Dolce & Gabbana), and her boss keeps calling her by the name of the previous second, now first, assistant Emily? Andy finds out the hard way-and makes it a really enjoyable watch for the audience!
Hathaway-who shot to fame in The Princess Diaries with Julie Andrews, bolstered her family-friendly popularity with Ella Enchanted and The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement, and successfully reinvented herself (even with the critics) by appearing topless in Brokeback Mountain-is in her makeover element in The Devil Wears Prada. If only for the sake of seeing the expression on her detractors' face, it's a delight to see Andy transform from a Size 6, frizzy-haired, subtle fashion disaster into a Size 4 glamour girl. What's an even bigger delight is seeing Andy's inner transformation-from thinking she has to bend over backwards to please her boss for the sake of her career, to bravely going for her dreams on her own terms.
As if it has to be said, however, the real star in this film is Streep. Her pale- skinned, silver-haired, whispery-voiced Miranda absolutely takes the spotlight in every scene she's in-so much so that one hopes there was more of her in the movie. She always has this ability to put flesh, blood and heart into what would have easily been one-dimensional characters in the hands of lesser artists. Instead of seeing a caricature of a fashion editrix, Streep gives us a believable driven, seemingly callous individual with hints of vulnerability without resorting to grandiose displays and hysterics.
As for insight, what I liked about the film is that it enlightens people like me (and Andy!), who have been known to look down on the importance of fashion magazines. In one scene, Andy snickers out loud when her boss and a stylist are confused between two cerulean belts that look almost alike. Miranda cuts her down by telling Andy how the off-the-rack lumpy sweater she was wearing that she probably chose partly to show her disdain for fashion was, in fact, the result of decisions made years ago by the very people in the room-from how it appeared two years ago in a fashion collection featured in Runway, to how it trickled down to the department stores. Not that it has converted me into some sort of fashionista-but I now get it.
As for the more important insight, however, what I really loved about this film is how Andy picks up her genuine life after realizing how much working for Runway and Miranda was eating her up. She ditches all the perks and the designer clothes for the bigger prize: her self-without which even the most expensive haute couture outfit, ultimately, will be just as good as a brown cloth sack. My only beef with the movie is that in the end, Andy ends up looking like her old frumpy self again. And while I get that as part of the visual story-telling, I'd prefer for her to be a tad bit more fashionably knowledgeable-because if the devil can wear Prada, why do angels have to wear unflattering jackets and have frizzy hair? Email your comments to alricardo@yahoo.com. You may also post them at http://channelsurfing-freeman.blogspot.com.