More fashion, less Andy

The Movie: The Devil Wears Prada, directed by David Frankel
Recommendation: A sort of anti-recommendation from Broomie and Dee
Reason: They hated the movie, or at least Broomie did. Dee didn't really see a lot of merit in it.

Movies based on books can be touchy subjects. The Devil Wears Prada was based on a book by the same title, though plotwise it shares about 50% with the book and veers off into the usual hollywood treacle for the rest. I don't insist on total faithfulness in the translation between novel and film, and The Devil Wears Prada doesn't exactly provide a feast of a story anyway. What it is high on is venom and viciousness, much of which somehow didn't make it to the screen.

First and foremost, forget about Anne Hathaway. Visually speaking, she's perfectly cast, with huge orphan eyes and a perpetual expression of 'ooooooooo'. Her character's a whiny little pushover who keeps wimping out and saying "I don't wanna" as she carries out the dirty work her ambition has wrought. It's Meryl Streep and Emily Blunt who bring together the most excellent onscreen pairing I've seen in some time. In a movie that's generally too nice to have the title of the book emblazoned over it, Streep is quietly vicious with the sort of precision that comes from being in the industry a long, long time. She has a gravity about her, a very real sense of 'upper echelon predator'. Meanwhile, Blunt buzzes through the film in a perpetual panic, the only character in the movie who feels true to the spirit of the novel. It's these two that sell it, in a strange tale of the sadomasochistic food chain of high fashion. The rest of the film has been populated with hypocritical backup players who cajole and mock Andy for her dedication to her job ("You did it for shoes, shirts, jewellery.") before babbling off on a tangent about their art, their cookery. Newsflash to everyone who's decided fashion is silly-every luxury is. Paying $100 for a purse is just as ludicrous as paying $20 for a pound of cheese (and I haven't even scraped the upper echelons of fashion or food with those price points). At least you can use the purse more than once.

If the movie had concentrated more on Miranda and how her very presence bowed and warped the world of everyone around her (not just whiny pathetic little Andy), if she was the real juggernaut of power and control she was portrayed as in the novel, I would have enjoyed it much more. As it was, with Anne Hathaway's simpering soppiness taking up most of the screen time, I'm just going to have to relegate myself to only half entertained.

(Oh, and a bit of trivia for those who didn't know? Anna Wintour showed up at the premiere in Prada.)

-25/365 down, 340/365 to go