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The Devil Wears Prada
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Everyone stumbles into his or her first career, a career counselor once told me. And that, despite improbabilities stacked as high as hat boxes, happens to ingénue Andrea (Andy) Sachs, who against all odds except the principle of dramatic economy is hired by the dragon lady herself, Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep, Manhattan), editor-in-chief and embodiment of Runway, the fashionista's bible.
Miranda rules Runway as Streep rules Prada, by scorn, and by precision, and by being icily right. "That's all," she says airily, with a hand dismissively flipped, an eyeglass earpiece idly twirled. "Yes, move at a glacial pace, you know how that thrills me," she drawls at one point, clearly aware that her staff trembles in anticipation that such cavalier verbal eviscerations will be performed, and not on them. For it is not just her power that thrills, it is also that her lashes are exquisitely deserved. Praise is the sweeter when the rule is rebuke. "Wish me luck!" calls Andy hurrying out the door on an impossible task. "No, shan't," replies number one girl Emily, who dreams of going to Paris with Miranda for fashion week.
The weakness of this film is Anne Hathaway (regressing since The Princess Diaries five (!) years ago), whose Andy is so appallingly callow we cannot believe she ever could write anything worthy of journalism. Nor is her heart-throb, sous-chef-in-training Nate (Adrian Grenier, Entourage), any more plausible or empathetic. Only the ever-versatile Stanley Tucci's Nigel ('don't make me feed you to one of the models") bridges the yawning chasm between Meryl's effortless ice ("please don't bore me with your incompetence") and Hathaway's wide-eyed deliveries: "Doesn't anybody eat around here?" she asks Nigel. "Not since two is the new four and zero is the new two." "Well, I'm a six …" "Aha! The new fourteen."
The plot? Oh, the plot. Do we need one of those, darling? To paraphrase Miranda, it's so … disappointing. So obvious. We expire of ennui waiting for Meryl and Stanley to play shuttlecock-the-drollery (why aren't they recast as Nick and Nora Charles?), abusing acting's vapid next generation. Devil very seldom puts Meryl and Stanley in the same shot, less it expose how narrow are their co-stars' ranges; the youngsters' thespian skills barely eclipse those of the clackers (runway models, nicknamed for the sound of their high-heeled scuttle), played with Barbie-esque gusto by real-life mannequins Heidi Klum, Gisele Bundchen, and Bridget Hall.
"Honestly," Meryl might have said at rushes, "is it too much to ask for to find someone worthy of being onscreen with me? Am I reaching for the stars here?"