The Devil Wears Prada 2 marks the return of Miranda (Meryl Streep), Andy (Anne Hathaway), Nigel (Stanley Tucci), and Emily (Emily Blunt), and the iconic magazine that connects the four of them: Runway.
A few years after the first film, Andy is now a respected journalist for The Vanguard in New York City. But after accepting an award for one of her pieces, her entire newsroom was decommissioned, effectively leaving her unemployed.
Andy then receives a call from the owner of Runway, Irv Ravitz (Tibor Feldman). He wants Andy to help her former company deal with the fallout of a scandal that Runway has gotten itself into. There’s a bit of hesitation because that means she will once again work with the one and only Miranda Priestly. But what the heck. She needs money and a job.
Besides, Miranda knows her. She even conceded before that Andy was one of her biggest disappointments (which is practically a compliment coming from Miranda) and that not hiring her would be idiotic.
To Andy’s surprise, though, Miranda doesn’t even remember her. She might need to spend some time catching up, but that will not be too difficult now since she will be working closely with her as the company’s new feature editor.
Andy is glad to be back. She is actually amazed by how much Runway has changed since her stint there. First, it is barely a magazine anymore. Because of technology, people are now paying more for digital subscriptions than physical copies. The company is also being pushed to create digital content, meaning Miranda must now embrace posting clickbait articles and short-form videos. The biggest change of all is that Miranda must now hang her own coat instead of tossing it at her assistants, owing to her piling HR complaints.
By the way, Emily is no longer a personal assistant to Miranda. She is now with Dior, an important partner to Runway. Miranda has new personal assistants: Amari (Simone Ashley) and Charlie (Caleb Hearon).
But despite all these changes, some things remain the same. Nigel is still the sweet and loyal guy Andy used to know, and Miranda is still driven, commanding, and precise. The latter is all Andy needs to confirm.
If Miranda is still Miranda, then it will not be long before they can turn Runway around.
If there is a film you would not expect to get a sequel, it’s The Devil Wears Prada. The first film is just perfect, iconic, and endlessly rewatchable because of the highly quotable script, Meryl Streep’s career-defining performance, and its relatable themes on hard work, ambition, and success. If we are talking about the quintessential movie about a career in fashion, this film is just it.
Hence, it is both shocking and intriguing that they decided to revive The Devil Wears Prada because there seems to be no valid reason to bring it back. No hype. No demands from the cast. No demands from the fans. Also, Meryl doesn’t do sequels. Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt, and Stanley Tucci are all well sought-after in Hollywood that I can imagine their calendars filled to the last hour, every day.
But here we are.
In all fairness, I think the sequel’s story is worth a shot. I can see the vision behind a career-driven boss learning to adapt to our society’s drastic developments. And it is not just any other boss. It’s Miranda Priestly. A respectable, critical, and traditional woman.
Now, Andy Sachs getting involved in all of this is the one I feel like is a stretch. It just feels unusual for her to go back to a place that’s been harsh to her. Her returning to Runway to save her career is a logic that I don’t really subscribe to. But I guess there is no Devil Wears Prada if Anne is not part of it. So maybe even if it kind of worked out in the end, the beginning of it all feels like a very bumpy ride.
Anne is not the only one returning. Stanley Tucci as well. Compared to Andy, Tucci’s return as Nigel is a no-brainer. If the film wants to tackle the modernization of everything from fashion to magazine, a character like Nigel brings sound opinion to the table. And the film did give us those opinions in style and pizzazz, and his take on things makes us love his character even more than in the first film. In fact, I think he’s one of the characters that the movie did right. They course-corrected his trajectory from the first film and we are all in for it.
In contrast to Nigel is Emily Blunt’s Emily. If Nigel grows more as a crowd favorite, Emily’s growth makes her an outright foil to her peers. But Emily is never a villain even if she is cold, harsh, and frank. She functions more as a product of the environment that Miranda creates.
Now, the decision to pit her against her former boss is something that feels like it flattens her character. For some reason, the film decided to focus on her worst qualities when everyone else gets the opposite treatment.
And since we are all looking into every character’s development since the first one, the biggest development is reserved for Meryl’s Miranda. I mentioned above that she is now learning to embrace the digital age. But the Miranda in this film feels different. Oh, she’s still as venomous as before, but with all the changes that have happened around her since, she becomes softer.
Yeah, the film puts a leash on her character, and I think in restraining her we lose some iconic moments. But Meryl is Meryl and she made it all interesting in her own way. It’s in the way she acts in circumstances like feeling uncomfortable, powerless, and confused. There’s that clear look of distress that even if she’s hard on people, you kind of want to root for her because you know she wants it, deserves it, and worked hard for it.
You still want her to win. And if you want the so-called devil of the movie to win, then that just means you are convinced of her competence, charisma, and grit.
The other thing worth mentioning about the movie is that it’s not as tight as the first one. I’m not saying that the first has no shortage of subplots, but this film gets boring because of thicker narrative padding. We get side quests from the romance subplot to Emily’s buyout scheme. I think the film shines when it is really just about Runway going digital and Miranda, Andy, and Nigel’s battle to keep certain things the same despite it all.
In summary, Devil Wears Prada 2 is not as strong as the first one. There are decisions I don’t really agree with, but there are far more decisions that I understand, and I can see the reason why they are tackling them. So if there’s a scale, that scale would lean more towards the positive.
3.5/5
Now showing in Cinemas.