Meryl Streep can do no wrong!

Rating: 7/10 (1 January 2008)

The Devil Wears Prada (2006) was directed by David Frankel. This is a movie about the fashion industry. In it we learn that, in fashion, it's better to be thin than not to be thin, people pretend to like each other when they don't, people with power and prestige tend to exercise their power and prestige, and people betray their friends if such betrayal will help them obtain or retain power. Shocking, truly shocking!
Please don't see this film for the plot. The movie requires a true suspension of disbelief. We're asked to believe that an honors graduate of Northwestern University goes for a job interview at a fashion magazine and doesn't know the name of the magazine's editor. It doesn't occur to her to dress up, rather than dress down, for the interview. She chooses an onion bagel for breakfast. (All of that is just in the first five minutes of the movie.)
We also have to believe that Anne Hathaway is frumpy and dowdy before she learns about fashion at her new job. Makeup and costuming did their best, but Anne Hathaway is Anne Hathaway, and she's drop-dead beautiful even before someone gives her high heels and designer dresses.
So--why see the movie? Three reasons--the fashions really are great; Paris looks wonderful; and Meryl Streep can do no wrong. Streep plays Miranda Priestly--demonic in her intensity and her demands, never looking anything other than her best, and contemptuous of anyone who doesn't recognize that the fashion industry is the center of the Universe. That portrayal doesn't require us to have any suspension of disbelief whatever. Streep has the talent to make you believe in her character, and the physical presence to stand out in a room filled with supermodels. Streep can inhabit a character so completely that it's hard to believe that, when the filming is over, she's really Meryl Streep and not the character she plays.
This is a movie worth seeing, as long as you don't expect to leave the theater with a new and profound appreciation of the difference between good and evil. See the movie because it's great to look at, and it's a pleasure to watch Meryl Streep do what only she can do.