It's sympathy for the devil all over again in 'The Devil Wears Prada 2'
Another legacy sequel, another time to say, “Again with this shit.”
Do I sound bitter? Well, you’d be right. I must be the only millennial woman who only recently watched the 2006 movie The Devil Wears Prada, and I confess I disliked it as much as I thought I would, and the book (now books) from whence it sprung. It was basically what I thought it was: a morality and cautionary tale of a woman who was punished for essentially having ambition, one of my most despised tropes.
Changing our minds tends to get a bad rap, but occasionally doing so can be one of the most reliable sources of growth. Or perhaps that’s merely a way to take the sting off of having to occasionally eat our words. In this case, it’s a roundabout way of saying The Devil Wears Prada 2 won me over. Far from the original’s sneering disdain at the fashion industry and the women who work in it, the sequel is such a joyful ode to career women and female creativity that it’s basically a glow up for everyone involved, supportive partners and all. Yes, I am a hater no more, and perhaps the last millennial woman to be won over, but I am now among the converted.
2026 20th Century Studios
The Devil Wears Prada 2 may also ramp up the locations, the clothes, the stakes, and the general fabulousness of it all, but its true secret weapon is substance both in the form of its returning cast, and especially its crew, writer Aline Brosh McKenna and director David Frankel. McKenna hasn’t only made it her business to know her way around drama and female messiness, she’s made it her brand, as co-creator of the show Crazy Ex-Girlfriend with Rachel Bloom, who also has a small role in the movie. One wonders if Bloom also contributed in an uncredited writing role kind of way in how McKenna basically updates her own work on the original Devil to bring the franchise from relic to relevance.
We’ve come a long way since 2006 baby, and it hasn’t all been good. Twenty years later, a magazine simply existing feels like a miracle, and the media dynamics of our current moment don’t merely force Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) to respect HR guidelines, they force her to descend to the cafeteria and even…fly economy. What a world.
And if it’s come to that for the icon herself, it’s absolutely brutal for the older and somewhat wiser Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway), who is fired via text mere seconds before winning a prestigious journalism award along with her co-workers. With her former boss (in)conveniently in the midst of her own PR crisis involving unethical fast fashion, Andy is called upon to save the place she once fled from.
2026 20th Century Studios
What follows is predictable in many ways, what with the various cameos, clothing, impossibly chic locales, and about as impossibly, spacious New York apartments, is also of course pure escapist fantasy. But it’s also quite shrewd about what defines much of female fantasy itself, from Outlander to Hazbin Hotel to 30 Rock: that someone with power would care and act accordingly. The most misguided, co-opted form of this is also the true heart of the tradwife fantasy, which claims that in exchange for performing patriarchal femininity, a (young) woman can gain creative funding and financial freedom.
If it also posits something that’s about as likely, that Miranda Priestly would become something of a humanist and even…sweet (??!!!!) rather than the boss from Hell, well, that’s far too understandable in an era where billionaires purchase and dispose of careers and entire industries practically on a whim. When journalism itself feels like a luxury, a snide tone is too much of a throwback.
Rating: A-
