The inspiration for Ugly Betty

Rating: 7/10 (13 January 2007)

I don't know when the wonderful TV series "Ugly Betty" was conceived, but the parallels with "The Devil Wears Prada" are numerous. Anne Hathaway is Andy, a sweet young aspiring journalist with no fashion sense who is, to everyone's shock, hired by the boss from right out of hell, Miranda (Meryl Streep), editor in chief of Runway Magazine. Confessing that every other assistant has been horrible, Miranda, while telling off Andy says, "So I said to myself, take a chance, hire the smart fat girl." Andy learns fashion from one of Miranda's fashion henchmen, Nigel (Stanley Tucci), and slowly but surely gets more and more sucked into Miranda's demands and life at Runway. Her friends notice a change, and her boyfriend believes they no longer have anything in common. "Wait until your life blows up in your face," Nigel advises her, "then it will be time for a promotion." The bitchy world of fashion is fun to watch. No one eats and everyone is shallow. Size 6 is the new size 14, so says Nigel. The politics are behind closed doors, vicious, and make for a rousing scene in the film - and a look at just how evil and disloyal people can be. It's never anything personal; it's just the way it is.
And that is what's not fun. Too many people have told me that Mildred "is my boss." It's hard to believe but it must be true. And the politics? Having once been a victim of behind closed door politics myself, I can attest that they, too, are equally true. While it gives one a few chuckles in a film, the reality is that corporate life today is ugly.
I enjoyed "The Devil Wears Prada" very much, particularly the marvelous performances of Streep, Tucci, Hathaway, and Emily Blunt as a frazzled ex-assistant, Hathaway, and the sexiness of Simon Baker. However, I basically felt like it was a movie for really young people. I'm not the target audience. And that's another thing: the message about women, targeted to really young women, has been Hollywood's message about women since there was a Hollywood. If you want to be miserable, be a powerful person in your chosen field. There, you will find yourself alone, i.e., manless. It gets a little tired after a while.
If the message is tired, the production values, the performances, and the clothes are anything but. There's some great humor to be had as well. I saw this on DVD and had a miserable time adjusting the volume. The music was too loud and the voices too loud - proof that I'm not the target audience.