Not quite a size 6, but it's personality might just win you over

Rating: 6/10 (6 October 2006)

The fashion industry: The giver and taker away of all things "in" and religion to every insecure, under-fed teen girl (and sometimes guy) in the western world is given a right smack (but never more so than that) in David Frankel's sometime satire. Anne Hathaway plays Andy, a smiley young girl who moves to New York in order to move up the fashion world. Her goal is journalism, but her right of passage is through assisting the cold, maliciously cruel fashion editor Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep, doing a po-faced Cruella Deville). She soon realises that the industry is cruel, shallow and incredibly undignified. Will she fall foul of it's devilish charms and superficial face, or keep her charm amidst a glamorous indecorum?
The fashion industry, at its worst, is absolutely monstrous. It gives birth to terrible self-indulgence, unhealthy lifestyles, immoral role models and hideous insecurity. Whilst The Devil Wears Prada does its best to caricature the embodiment of the fashion world, by having Miranda Priestly make mince meat out of her assistants, and those assistance being every bit as self-conscious and docile to her demands, it is never as savage as it needs to be to show up the beauty obsessed world. Miranda Priestly is as delicious a villainess as you'd like her to be, but her actions don't portray the true shark that we know exists in that office. She's a one-dimensional cartoon first, and satirical allegory second. Take a film like Swimming For Sharks (1994) for instance  Kevin Spacey's movie boss is every bit as snarling and callous as Miranda, but with a vicious honesty that chokes out the niceties attached to The Devil Wears Prada. Whereas Mean Girls (2003) showed how a character can be sucked in to a world through vengeance, but end up just as nasty as her enemies, Andy is never truly swayed by everyone else's superficiality. At the start of the movie she doesn't define herself by her clothes, but half way through she turns into Kate Moss. She becomes obsessed with her work, and alienates her incredibly uninteresting boyfriend. She even flirts with other fashion designers, but then that's only human of her. Does she become a monster like some other critics have suggested? Not on your life. Her charming smile follows her right throughout Frankel's picture, never letting up despite the constant abuse thrown her way.
But whilst it may lack a bite or two, there's nothing terribly wrong with this film. It is consistently entertaining, if predictable at times, has some ripe old performances  Stanley Tucci steals every scene his in  and is generally a feel good couple of hours. Is the satire reminiscent of Wall Street (1987)? Certainly not. But if you liked Sex & The City, you'll love this. There is, however, a much darker film yet to be made about this subject.