The Devil Wears Prada 2 – Movie Review
There is a certain amount of risk to run with legacy sequels. Sometimes, you get some absolute bangers like Top Gun: Maverick and Freakier Friday, which manage to recapture the feeling audiences fell in love with decades earlier while bringing beloved characters into a modern era. And sometimes, you get Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny or Dumb and Dumber To… the less said about those movies, the better. Now, 20 years after The Devil Wears Prada cemented itself as a groundbreaking, iconic comedy, the original quartet return for a sequel that proves its cinematic worth, but may arguably be even better than its predecessor.
Now an award-winning journalist after her tenure at the fashion magazine Runway, Andy (Anne Hathaway) is unexpectedly made redundant in an ever changing new media landscape that values click bait and social media likes over integral think pieces. While Andy tries to navigate her way through these changes, controversy arises for Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) and Runway when an expose reveals some ethical wrongdoings in their latest campaign. Now with Runway and their position in this new media landscape at risk of consolidation, Andy returns to the magazine to help rebirth their image, despite Miranda’s biting reluctance, and with the help of her old friends (or frenemies?) Emily (Emily Blunt) and Nigel (Stanley Tucci).
The seamless way that Hathaway, Streep, Blunt and Tucci re-emerge as their characters shows the timelessness that screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna (who returns as the writer for this sequel) injected into those characters 20 years ago, and the unique life that each actor breathed into them. And while there are still iconic elements of the characters that have remained over that time, be it Miranda’s scathing insults, Emily’s brutal fashion advice, or Andy’s smiling assassin mentality, the story explores how these characters have changed and ultimately matured since the events of the first film, which leads to a lot of sweet, sincere moments throughout the film, especially between Andy and Nigel.
Looking like they’ve barely aged a day in the last 20 years, something that quite hilariously works in tandem with the aesthetic expectations of the fashion industry that they inhabit, the entire main cast and every supporting player or cameo are hot, and they all know it. The fashion is dynamic, with costuming and set design that truly pops off of the screen with sexy confidence. Director David Frankel also weaponises that feeling with the film’s two major settings, New York and Italy. There is an appeal that oozes off of the screen with the way he shoots the elite natures of these cities, and how these confident characters walk around them (to a banging soundtrack), hot and in charge. But all of that confidence is exterior, and the film does a really solid job of exploring the internal vulnerability of these characters.
The fashion world is once again a major part of the film, but it’s not the film. For 2 hours, we’re taking on a journey of re-discovering yourself in an ever changing landscape. If the first film was about Andy navigating and bringing a new perspective to a new world, this film is about maintaining relevance by staying true to the things that were discovered on that previous journey. And with that comes the fear of change and the brutality of the new media landscape. But what makes the journey even more interesting is having to watch two people like Andy and Miranda, who have a spotted history, navigate that journey together and open up to each other along the way. And it turns out to be a very sweet story because of that.
There is an argument to be made that this sequel succeeds the first film in terms of quality, and that is probably dependent on what you’re expecting from the film. The Devil Wears Prada 2 is a sincere, sweet story that doesn’t work without the hilariously nasty foundations that the first film was built on. But, it’s seeing how these characters have grown, and continue to grow, throughout this story, set to a fashion-filled backdrop that is just as hot and dynamic as it was 20 years ago, that solidifies that argument that The Devil Wears Prada 2 is a worthy legacy sequel.
The Devil Wears Prada 2 is in Australian cinemas April 30
