The Devil Wears Prada 2
After publishing a scandalously ill-informed article about a label, Speedfash, that is actually a sweatshop, amidst the decline of print media, Runway Magazine editor Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) is surprised to learn her boss has hired Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway), now a journalist, as her new features editor to help turn the ship around. Andy will realize Miranda doesn’t think she’s up to the task as she follows her and Nigel (Stanley Tucci) to mend fences with Priestly’s old assistant Emily (Emily Blunt), now a high-powered fashion executive and Runway advertiser, in "The Devil Wears Prada 2."
Laura's Review: B
Director David Frankel, screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna and the original film’s main cast return twenty-two years later with a sequel that largely works once one gets past a fairly defanged Miranda Priestly. One may also marvel how the main cast hardly appears to have aged at all. This one’s smart enough to introduce Andy with her career in the very place she’d dreamed of in the first film, receiving an award for investigative journalism for The New York Vanguard, only to be laid off by text just as she’s about to take the podium. It’s her impassioned speech about the importance of her profession that grabs the attention of Irv Ravitz (Tibor Feldman), head of the Elias Clark group that owns Runway. And if Andy’s journalism career is the sequel’s first callback, the fact that Miranda has no idea who she is when she appears in her office is the second. There will be many more, including the movie’s fairy godmother vibe, this time seemingly in reverse between Andy and Nigel.
Andy is astonished watching Miranda fold to Emily’s demands and Miranda isn’t impressed when a media critic calls Andy’s article about Runway’s Speedfash scandal a ‘bracing mea culpa’ because it isn’t drawing eyeballs. Andy, still out to earn Miranda’s praise after all these years, learns that her boss’s great white whale is Sasha Barnes (Lucy Liu), the billionaire ex-wife of tech bro Benji Barnes (Justin Theroux), who hasn’t been giving interviews, and goes out and lands her, a huge get for Runway. Suddenly Andy’s been invited to the Hamptons by Miranda where she meets such luminaries as Tina Brown, Jenna Bush Hager, Jon Batiste and his wife Suleika Jaouad and is even confided in by the hostess herself. But of course all sorts of other complications crop up including the ex coworker trying to convince Andy to write a tell-all on her boss, Emily’s threatening new relationship with Benji Barnes and Miranda’s promotion to Global Content Manager and her magazine itself being thrown into jeopardy when Irv dies and his bottom line obsessed son, Jay Ravitz (B.J. Novak), takes the reins of Elias Clark. And that latter happens just after Andy’s friend Lilly (Tracie Thoms) has convinced her to buy a new luxury apartment. All this and a show to put on in Milan headlined by Lady Gaga!
Of course, in many ways, the more things change, the more they stay the same. If Andy had a relationship with someone outside of the fashion world before, she finds a new one in Peter (Patrick Brammall, TV’s ‘Evil,’ ‘Colin from Accounts’), the Irish contractor who renovated her new apartment, the two actors sharing a genuine spark. Runway assistants run the gamut from the snooty, Miranda’s new ‘Emily’ Amari (Simone Ashley, TV’s ‘Sex Education’) filling the old Emily’s shoes, to the sweet, second assistant Charlie (Caleb Hearon) enjoying some of that fairy godmother dust. Jin (Helen J. Shen), the intern assigned to Andy, also enjoys a career boost by film’s end. One still takes one’s life into one’s hands going upstairs in Miranda’s elegant townhome, but now she has a husband, Stuart (Kenneth Branagh), who answers the door. Need a wardrobe for a weekend in the Hamptons? Nigel’s still on hand as Andy’s personal stylist. The original film featured cameos from Valentino, Heidi Klum and Gisele Bundchen. The sequel features Donatella Versace, Marc Jacobs, Heidi Klum and stylist Law Roach.
Of course, the clothes are to die for, Molly Rogers taking over from “Sex and the City’s” Patricia Field as costume designer (she also took over for the “Sex and the City” sequel, “And Just Like That”). Streep is always elegant, mostly in pale neutrals but for one extravagant red gown while Andy is clad in feminine business attire and one slinky blue gown. The more outrageous looks are saved for Blunt and her Emily suits them. Oddly, Gaga’s runway show performance costume is a bit tacky (and her song with Doechii, ‘Shape of a Woman,’ fails to impress as well).
McKenna’s screenplay glosses over some things, like just how Andy manages to court Sasha Barnes, who is also surprisingly open once they get her interview (Lui gives a lot of character to a small role). Director of Photography Florian Ballhaus and editor Andrew Marcus make a few odd choices, a sudden cut to extreme close-ups during a conversation disorienting. And if the main cast looks much the same, it is alarming to see how much both Theroux and Novak have aged. Streep looks great taking Priestly from comedy (hanging up her own coat!), to imperious snark to surprising vulnerability, in the end Frankel and McKenna leaving her just as we originally found her. Emily remarks that Andy has more confidence and perhaps that is so but Anne Hathaway finds everything that made Andy so endearing in the first place, just as Blunt slips right back into Emily’s skin. Tucci picks up right where he left off as well, the sequel allowing him a little wistfulness.
“The Devil Wears Prada 2” introduces just enough new trends to maintain interest within the comforting familiarity of vintage.
20th Century Studios releases "The Devil Wears Prada 2" in theaters on 5/1/26.
