I recently watched “Devil Wears Prada” for the first time because I was curious about why it was big in the cultural zeitgeist? I found a lot of charm in the original, with great dresses and beautiful scenery. It was a bit of a dive into the world of art, fashion and how demanding artists are, which I found interesting considering in my own life I know how demanding artists are.
In “Devil Wears Prada 2,” the film dives into a deeper, more meaningful question: What is art in a corporate world that simply sees art as a way for profit? It is a bit of an ironic film because it comes under the helm of Disney, who notoriously sees every film that made money in the past as a money-making machine if they find a way to make a sequel somehow.
However, in all this irony is an incredibly deep film. “Devil Wears Prada 2” follows Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway) 20 years after her time as an assistant for the great Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep), now a famous journalist being laid off after winning an award for best journalist of the year. Once she is laid off, she starts to look for a new job, and a feature editor position opens for Runway magazine after a controversy forces the company to rehabilitate its image, which forces Sachs to have to work with Priestly once again.
The film begins with a lot of callbacks to the first one, which fans will appreciate as much as I did. This movie, however, opens with a much darker tone, where we see that the conditions of the journalism world are not as optimistic as the ending of “Devil Wears Prada” two decades ago.
This darker tone feels a little bit abandoned for about 30 minutes once Sachs begins to work at Runway because she must prove herself to Priestly once again and meet with Emily Charlton (Emily Blunt), the first assistant in the last film. However, the tone comes right back once we get to the midway conflict, which I will not spoil.
It felt very refreshing to see a film that reflected the world it stands in. Currently, the digital world is flooded by articles trying to make you engage as much as humanly possible, optimized for every click. Social media plays a huge role in the fashion world because you are meant to feel jealous of someone else and seek the “perfect outfit.”
Every character that does not truly appreciate the work that is put into making Runway has some stupid remark about what the future will be like. My favorite one goes to the iconic, “In the future, there will be no designers, just A.I.”
The only other films I have seen recently that properly use social media and feature the idea that our future will be optimized for us as more than just a way to move the plot along would be “Eddington” a neo noir western and “Highest 2 Lowest” a hip hop crime thriller. Two much less mainstream films intentionally tried to represent the real world, but what these films share is their reliance on moments from the actors that make us think about the beauty of human acting.
In “Devil Wears Prada 2,” there is an amazing scene where Meryl Streep simply looks around Italy after finding out about a horrible secret. She looks at these beautiful buildings, and she realizes that art will be here long after the artist’s death, but she chooses to play it very subtly, giving the space for more interpretation. Another beautiful scene is when Streep plays into a scene where her character must finally appreciate her assistant Nigel (Stanley Tucci). It is a beautifully poignant moment full of feelings that A.I. could never replicate.
Overall, “Devil Wears Prada 2” is a more interesting sequel than most sequels because it shows the original film’s ideas in the current world we live in. The film features an amazing house party soundtrack and emotional performances from actors. I give it 4/5 stars because while the film has its worthwhile moments, it still gets lost in trying to be a profitable mainstream film.
