The Devil Wears Prada 2

4 outta 5

The Devil Wears Prada 2 is a worthy 20 years later sequel to the original film. It features a really apt storyline about mergers, buyouts, layoffs and how mega corporate moves are erasing publishing history. While the boss is still very snarky, she seems to have warmed slightly; she is less the Devil and more of a diligent worker in a field that is rapidly losing subscribers. This is really about people looking fabulous and trying to still matter in a very superficial and increasingly brutal business. Ultimately, corporate interest is a bigger devil than any fashion magazine editor could ever be.

After leaving her assistant job at the Runway fashion magazine 20 years ago, Andy (Anne Hathaway) has done important journalistic work and then her and her co-workers are unceremoniously fired via text. As this happened in the middle of an awards gala, Andy makes an impassioned acceptance speech about how journalism matters that goes viral. Meanwhile, Andy’s old boss, Miranda (Meryl Streep) is undergoing a scandal and Andy is rehired to be the features editor for Runway. Miranda doesn’t remember Andy, but her right-hand man Nigel (Stanley Tucci) does and welcomes Andy back. He is bitter that nobody buys the once prominent print magazine of Runway and instead are reduced to small form clickbait articles. Emily (Emily Blunt) is a former Runway assistant but now an executive at Dior, having moved beyond the publishing world and is dating the rich Benji (Justin Theroux). Andy is also dating Peter (Patrick Brammall) but her job is the most important. Meanwhile the new owner of Runway, Jay (B.J. Novak) is threatening to upend the entire company. Now Andy, Miranda and Nigel must fight to save Runway before it gets sold to another big corporation and loses its identity and big boss, Miranda.

The first movie was really about Andy trying to survive as Miranda’s assistant fresh out of college. 20 years later, she is dedicated to the importance of journalism, and is especially bitter at being tossed aside. But she still slides into her old workplace easily. Miranda, acting the same way 20 years later, doesn’t remember her until Nigel reminds her that Andy was “one of the Emily’s”, which is the name Miranda gave all of her assistants. When Andy is forced upon Miranda, the boss calls up the current features editor and fires them to make room for Andy, making Andy feel guilty.

The story about publishing and journalism being destroyed by corporate buyouts gives the film a sense of melancholy, as entire careers are just being tossed aside as billionaires buy and sell people. Even the notion of a fashion magazine being an influencer of tastes now seems positively archaic. With the publishing world falling apart around them, it is oddly heartening that Miranda and Nigel are basically the same. Streep pops back into the role perfectly, as she seems very dismissive and befuddled by terms like “body positivity.” Her trait of throwing her coat at her assistants had to be taken away by HR. It is quite the ordeal for Miranda to hang her own coat and gasping in exasperation in the end. But she does seem a bit nicer by now, surprisingly she is getting along really well with her current husband, Stuart (Kenneth Branagh). They have a good chemistry together, although Stuart grouses that the fashion cocktail parties are a lot harder to endure after he quit drinking.

Hathaway’s Andy still seems very chipper and determined to do her job. Being unceremoniously fired really had an effect on her as she truly believes that journalism matters. When she initially gets her editor job, Miranda sticks her in a terribly cramped small office. But even though nobody really wants the features job, she still puts in the work. Andy focuses on her job and is still unlucky in love, mentioning that her eggs are frozen. She gets another love interest in Pete but they don’t have much chemistry as Brammall makes him kind of a dud.

Still great is Tucci as Nigel. He still has some perfectly snippy comments about what Andy can wear, denying her certain dresses “because you’re so pale.” He is lamenting that he doesn’t have the budget for elaborate photoshoots an online catalogue, saying that the feature pictures are just something people scroll on by while reading in the bathroom. Playing a perfectly jerky owner of a big corporation, Novak’s Jay does an incredibly callous sell-off of assets, leaving people wrecked. Theroux as Benji is completely strange, saying weird things like how he’s on a no water diet, or saying the entire Runway magazine can be replaced by AI. As his girlfriend and former assistant of Miranda, Blunt’s Emily still has the excessive bitterness towards Andy that hasn’t dissipated in 20 years. She is now selling way too expensive handbags as if it were perfectly normal. There are a couple of twists she is a part of, and Blunt sells it well.

Devil Wears Prada 2 is a fun return to a very cutthroat world of fashion as Miranda is very amusingly refusing to change, even as magazines become increasingly irrelevant. Andy is a likable lead and Nigel remains the best wingman for her and Miranda. Even if she say lots of mean things, they make the world a little brighter.