Welcome to hell...

Rating: 5/10 (27 February 2007)

That Meryl Streep has been Oscar nominated for a role in a movie like "The Devil Wears Prada" simply speaks of her unique talent as an actress and of lots years and experience in the business to choose the right characters to play. I would have preferred a nomination for her work in "A Prairie Home Companion"; it would have been a tribute to Robert Altman. But true: the presence she had there isn't comparable to the one she has as this devil.
Miranda Priestly is the name of the non-human (is the best expression I can think of) character Streep portrays. Fortunately for her, the movie makes clear that Miranda is not human and it constantly finds a new example so we can see it on screen. So when Andy (Anne Hathaway) arrives to be this devil's new second assistant, a job apparently 'a million girls would kill for', she makes very clear that this is just a normal job for her, because she takes work seriously and she wants to be a journalist.
Nevertheless, Miranda ruthlessly throws her a bunch of activities that the most prodigious mind couldn't even remember instantly; and she just tells Andy. That's the way things work at "Runway", the important fashion magazine where Miranda is the queen. Emily (Emily Blunt), the devil's first assistant (yes, she has two), gives Andy an explanation of the routine on the first day: "You just stay on the desk and pick up the phone, you can't move if I'm not here". "But if I want to go the bathroom?", Andy asks. "You can't; once a girl chopped her finger with a stapler and had to stay because the phone was ringing".
Two days later, Andy goes to her 15-minute lunch break and when she has chosen her food, Nigel (Stanley Tucci) comes and says she must leave it because Miranda has called and she always arrives fifteen minutes early. When Andy gets to the office, Emily yells at her because she has to pee and she's been holding it for ten minutes. This people can't even eat and they talk almost exactly the way I'm saying they do.
What happens is that Andy wears old sweaters and long ugly skirts her boyfriend (Adrian Greiner) loves but that are not classy enough to work in a fashion magazine. Plus, she doesn't care about fashion and she says it out loud, which apparently is a crime. In one scene, Miranda looks at one of Andy's old sweaters and gives her lesson about its origin and about how it relates so deeply to fashion. That one-minute talk alone is worth Streep's Oscar nomination; because in the film's heartless world, she shows no heart.
I haven't read Lauren Weisberger's novel, but Aline Brosh McKenna has adapted a work that ended up in a script that has no sense of reality at all. I repeat: a person doesn't work like this, a person doesn't talk like this, a person doesn't live like this, a person doesn't do or say these things. David Frankel directed the film the same way; showing the million different outfits the wonderful costume design offers and shooting each night event with all the glamour and style. It didn't help; I became completely aware of it when the picture introduced an incredibly dreamed character played by Simon Baker.
All the cast is exceptional really; it has young British talented actresses, it has Tucci at his best form, it has Anne Hathaway delivering well (and most importantly showing that she's not a vehicle actress and she can do different things) and of course, Meryl Streep. The plot line takes a turn at some point and it becomes shamefully predictable; but it occurs when you don't care about these characters anymore.