a sequel for summer blockbuster season? Groundbreaking. But this follow-up to The Devil Wears Prada – which grossed a hefty $326 million and featured an Oscar-nominated Meryl Streep – actually feels quite exciting. If anything, David Frankel’s 2006 adaptation of Lauren Weisberger’s salty roman à clef has grown in stature over the past two decades.
Biting one-liners like “by all means move at a glacial pace” and “details of your incompetence do not interest me” have entered the pop cultural lexicon. Meanwhile, revisionist thinkpieces have argued that the real villain of the piece wasn’t Streep’s Miranda Priestly, the fearsome magazine editor who terrorised Anne Hathaway‘s unlikely assistant Andy, but Adrian Grenier’s negging boyfriend Nate. Even Vogue boss Anna Wintour, whom Miranda was allegedly based on, has called the film “a fair shot”.
It helps that pretty much everyone – except for Grenier, of course – has returned for The Devil Wears Prada 2. Frankel directs from a script by original screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna, who finds a just-about-convincing way to reunite Streep’s withering editrice with her ambitious former assistant. However, a full 20 years after imperious Miranda schooled fashion-averse Andy about the significance of cerulean blue, the power dynamic has shifted somewhat.
Miranda is still the revered editor-in-chief of fashion mag Runway, but sales have plummeted since legacy media was overtaken by digital content, and a recent article about a dodgy fast fashion brand has spooked advertisers. Andy, who is now an award-winning but conveniently unemployed investigative journalist, is parachuted in to restore Runway’s gravitas as its new features editor. Can they learn to work together to save an ailing institution that may or may not be based on Vogue? Spoiler: they can, though Brosh McKenna’s screenplay lobs in enough obstacles to justify the two-hour runtime.
Where the original affectionately satirised the fun and frippery of the fashion industry, The Devil Wears Prada 2 often feels like a paean to old-school print media. After her fast fashion fumble, Miranda is forced to take a humiliating meeting with Dior, one of Runway’s top advertisers, which is now headed up by another former assistant, Emily Blunt‘s brittle Emily. When her one-time underling suggests a puff piece about Chanel’s new flagship store to smooth over the cracks, Miranda agrees without batting an eyelid.
The decline of old-school journalism really isn’t funny – ask any writer – but fortunately this film manages to be witty as well as surprisingly pertinent. The promotion that Miranda is now angling for sounds suspiciously similar to Wintour’s global chief content officer role at Condé Nast. Streep’s queenly editor may be a little less devilish than she was in the Smartphone era, but she’s still capable of giving a scheming rival an absolutely savage dressing down. Hathaway, Blunt and Stanley Tucci, who’s poignant as Miranda’s right-hand man Nigel, also tear into their old roles like interns handed a luxury goody bag.
Kenneth Branagh is barely tested as Miranda’s new husband Stuart but Bridgerton‘s Simone Ashley is suitably aloof as Miranda’s new assistant, Amari. When Andy mentions that she gave away the vintage Chanel she pocketed during her first Runway stint, Amari’s unimpressed look is practically Priestly-esque.
A perfunctory romantic subplot linking Andy to a bland property developer (Patrick Brammall) should have been edited out and the ending is perhaps a little too sentimental. But this is still a smart and satisfying sequel. The Devil Wears Prada 2 feels like a sleek update on a classic, not a cheap knock-off that falls apart in the wash.
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