By Katie Sterling
This review is quite fashionably late, but given the nature of the movie, perhaps that’s on theme? After all, The Devil Wears Prada 2 was a sequel 20 years in the making, what’s a few months after theatrical release to finally write about it? When the trailers first debuted, it seemed more tongue-in-cheek than actually plot-driven. Nostalgia over substance. That’s fine on the face of it all, but after watching the sequel that no one really asked for, it frankly gives more bargain rack than designer couture.
Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway) is now an award-winning journalist writing pieces far from the Dior-dripping pages of the fashion magazine where she got her start. However, after being laid off from her job, she is presented with an opportunity to use the power of her prose to help fix a public scandal at Runway magazine. Naturally, she reflects on her previous time there with an air of wistfulness as she’s no longer bottom of the working food chain. But when she encounters big bad boss Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) again, Miranda has no recollection of the woman she relentlessly tortured. Classic.
From there, the film doesn’t quite seem to know what kind of message or plot direction it wants to go in. Are we focusing on the death of print media? Company nepotism? Cancel culture? Romance? Billionaires who swoop in to save the day as effortlessly as simply placing a phone call? There are so many plot points that are introduced then dropped, it lends itself to lazy writing and inconsistency. Don’t even get me started on the amount of random celebrity faces that are peppered into the movie, solely it seems to just to have audiences go, “Oh look, it’s so-and-so.”
What made the first movie so successful was watching Andy’s tumultuous escapades working in a world that made absolutely no sense to her. The audience felt every unfortunate mishap, cheered at every win and laughed at every biting comment. This sequel plays too large, trying to do too much and too swiftly that you can never find the rhythm. And frankly, they seem to have forgotten the devil component of their title. In the first film, Miranda was absolutely savage and coworker Emily (Emily Blunt) could cut someone with just a look. In the sequel, the villains are…vanilla. (Break to say that as always, Stanley Tucci as Nigel is perfection. No notes.)
The Devil Wears Prada 2 could have been strong if it lent more focus to the creatives who are struggling to survive in a world where print is taken as a joke in a digital world. It’s a topic that’s more relevant than ever, but feels only slightly touched on. Also, make Miranda more formidable, give us the meme-worthy banter and the biting comments that have us howling.
Sadly, this is another representation of the fact that not all sequels are needed. Sometimes you just need to close on a win. Learn when to call it. To say we’re done. To declare, “that’s all.”
Now streaming on Amazon Prime.
