Der Teufel trägt Prada

Unmissable for Meryl Streep fans. She plays second fiddle to Anne Hathaway here - screen time wise, otherwise she's the whole bloody orchestra. She's the one reason to see the film and that in itself is one hell of a reason. Meryl Streep is fearless and part of the joy of going to see her films is that we know for a fact that she's going to dare and dare and dare. From Sophie's Choice and A Cry in The Dark to Death Becomes Her and Plenty. Here the story is as unbearable as most TV commercials but she, Meryl/Miranda transforms it into something else. We connect with her evil queen because her evil queen is much more real, much more human than anybody else on the screen. Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci are fun but they're in the periphery of a story that's so wafer thing they can't really move to the center. Anne Hathaway is kind of invisible and her character only changes costumes and make up. There is no real tangible growth. Now that I got that out of my system. Go see Meryl be Miranda. You'll have a lot of fun.

With dialog that absolutely crackles, "The Devil Wears Prada" is bound to please most audiences but will primarily appeal to the MTV generation, I suspect. When all is said and done, it's your typical fish-out-of-water, bright-lights-big-city fable, just dressed up all purdy.

Or, put another way, it's essentially "The Princess Diaries" with much, much, muuuuuuuuuch better dialog and a slightly more sophisticated and dramatic story arc.

So while older audiences may feel the film is a bit formulaic, the hysterical, but occasional cruel, one-liners and zingers hurled at Anne Hathaway's Andy are sure to keep them entertained. Stanley Tucci and Emily Blunt get most of the barbs, and Blunt in particular is fantastic in the film.

Tucci and Meryl Streep, however, get to make the most provocative and stirring speeches in the film, and they deliver. Hathaway capably carried the movie, perhaps overacting, but she makes it work. Streep proves again that she's a gifted comedian. Emily Blunt, as Emily, is pitch perfect, and her performance here gives beautiful irony to her given name.

The film is just too long, however, primarily because the director feels obliged to explain everything -- every plot point is rendered obviously and painfully clear, and nothing left open for interpretation. That said, we're spared the "perfect ending" and left with a heroine who can truly stand on her own two feet, and in any shoes she might desire.

There's absolutely no chemistry between Anne and Adrian. How the hell did they cast him for this role?! Everyone else is brilliant. Classic fun, love this movie.

Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway) is a recent journalism graduate hoping for a job at an important news outlet. She gets hired by the ruthless Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) editor of Runway fashion magazine. Only she feels the magazine is beneath her high minded journalism. Emily Blunt plays Miranda's long suffering assistant, and Stanley Tucci plays her longtime second in command.

Of course Andy learns some lessons, grows in character, and faces a choice. The story is pretty standard loosely based on Anna Wintour editor of Vogue. The big plus is the great performances from all three ladies. Emily Blunt is funny. Meryl Streep nails her performance. And Anne Hathaway is great at holding the screen with these powerful performances.

Phil Spector invented modern pop music. Oh, some elements shift from time to time and different performer types are selected to posture in front. But the basic formula is one of filling all the holes. He called it "wall of sound," but Eric Clapton popularized the notion that the lead defines "holes" and its the job of the producer to fill them all.

It has to do with some hardwired notion of richness in the way we perceive things. My own theory is that usually we encounter things that to be understood have to be placed in some sort of context. We have to provide that context by being whole beings who have our own world and understand it. But we don't, usually. We're incomplete, lazy about this. We want prefabricated worlds to provide context and eliminate ambiguities.

That's why we prefer it when an object comes with its own context, like in pop music where there is no vacuum for us to use. Fashion is the same way: there's some sort of bold statement, but it only works if all the holes are filled with accompanying items and attitudes.

And its the same with movies. If you want a movie to be popular, to sit well in the popular eye, you need to make it lush in the small. This project shows signs that it is carefully produced in this way. Look at what happens in the backgrounds: colors, energy, motion. Look at what happens in the blocking: compound events conflated. Look at even the simple setup where a friend sees our young heroine flirt with a suitor. There's a huge amount of attention paid to the environment and the people which surround her.

A Paris street walk is another very fine example.

It isn't as valuable as what I usually look for: actual cinematic art. This is more craft, stagecraft. But it is well enough done to be admired. And entirely apt for a story about an industry that does the same thing.

+++++

There are essentially four characters in this. The boss, our young writer, the "first assistant" who is placed in between in several ways, and the gay (we infer) fashion expert who is placed in between in other ways.

Part of the richness is that each of these is fuller than the usual "lesson" movie would have. All four are compelling performances. But if you haven't yet seen this, I'd like you to pay particular attention to Emily Blount. She's the number 1 assistant.

You've probably seen her before in the very special "My Summer of Love," something human about love and seductions. I think she's a real talent, something different than the others. Oh, they're very good at what they do, finding the right notes. But this woman has something else, something more visceral.

You see, you can dance your own context into this and turn it from something that has no room for you. Try it by following the Emily Blount character, whose name is also Emily. (Hathaway's character is the "new Emily.")

+++++

The moral issue we are meant to capture is more sophisticated than usual, too. Streep's character isn't a devil at all. She isn't quite a useful person in the manner that she actually creates. She doesn't make anything. She doesn't create or design or do anything normally considered the root of the food chain in term of value.

She's part journalist, a sort of elevated, influential journalism that Anne's character doesn't have the horsepower to accept. She's also an arbiter of what matters. Its not a new notion, that some journalists create the world they present, and make it seem real by absolute consistency and projected confidence. Its what politics is. Fashion and politics, religion.

That final challenge, about whether our young journalist will follow what she sees as the devil, that final challenge is more complex than it seems. And though this is a mainstream movie, part of the enrichment is that they didn't tone it down. And they left us with the conclusion that the girl left and wrote the story we see, one which casts the successful worldbuilder as the devil.

++++

Speaking about worldbuilders and fashion. To appreciate this movie, you must see the one on which it relies, "Funny Face." Audrey Hepburn, with the smile that Hathaway mines. Similar situation: fashion, clunky girl becomes fashionably adept, conflict between the "real" and pretend (in that case, philosophy). A trip to Paris — some of the very same establishing shots in fact. An ambiguous resolution that in Hepburn's case involved photography instead of writing.

That movie made Jackie Kennedy possible, which made Jack Kennedy president, and from there, another "wall of sound" that built a reality, incidentally concurrent with the rise of Phil Spector...

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.