Devil and Fashion

Despite the title, The Devil Wears Prada isn't actually about the devil. Which is really unfortunate because the end of this movie could have used a gripping scene that decided the fate of a young woman's soul. Actually in a way it kind of did. Roger Ebert described this movie as an after school special. In that analysis he isn't far from the mark but it doesn't mean there aren't moments of amusement in the film.

The film jumps right into the story by showing the lead Andy (Anne Hathaway) arriving at the offices of "Runway", a fashion magazine, to interview for an assistant job. In mid interview in comes the titular devil. She is Miranda (Meryl Streep) the very difficult editor and chief of "Runway". She like the rest of the workers scoff at how drab Andy looks but Miranda sees a certain inner strength in her and hires her.

Andy suffers through a montage of abuse from her boss but perseveres promising herself that if she can survive a year in this place she can work anywhere she wants. She slowly starts to pick up on fashion with the help of one of the clothes designers and soon becomes the star assistant. Meanwhile her relationship with her boyfriend and friends start to deteriorate as she becomes more superficial in her actions.

Andy desperately tries to keep her core values or at least convince herself that she has kept them. By movie's end she realizes that she has indeed forgotten what made her who she was and rejects this new lifestyle. She walks away from the job and she is whole again.

Yes, it is that silly of a plot. I liked the first half just enough to suffer through the second half of the movie. This all despite the fact that Andy's values are clearly supposed to be good wholesome mid-western values corrupted by the Big City. The way it jumped into the world and introduced characters quickly and efficiently was so well done that in the first few minutes I had a smile on my face. The early torment and the first time Andy appears in fashionable outfits are nice touches as you root for her. That it inevitably falls into such a standardized plot is partially saved by decent acting.