Not a great film, but a great performance

Rating: 7/10 (10 February 2007)

This is, as every comment has surely noted, a tremendous performance by Meryl Streep. She creates a character who is, basically, monstrous, even though at one point she shows vulnerability, just for a while before the armour goes back on. Whether the real life models for Miranda Priestly are quite this tyrannical and demanding I do not know. If there is a flaw, it is that she comes across as almost too beastly: there is no real suggestion that she has the charisma to inspire the (often fearful)loyalty that she gets. Nor do we really get an insight into her motivation, except perhaps the implicit suggestion that she *has* to behave like this to maintain her position, maybe that she fears if she does not, she will be dethroned. The film is subtle in suggesting her limitations - she cannot conceive of anyone not wanting a position like hers - and in giving her the comeuppance she deserves by having Andrea walk away, to give her "her biggest disappointment".
The film really centres on her much more than on Andrea and the rather moralistic story of her temporary seduction by and final rejection of the world of fashion. In general, I found the characters wholly caught up in this world (Emily and Nigel) much better realised than Andrea's 'normal' friends. Her boyfriend, in particular, is hard to get a handle on, and he is given one of the more questionable lines. In my view, Andrea did *not* do the job just for the clothes and shoes and bags, and it is unfair and narrow-minded to suggest that she did; surely she did it to "show them" - that she was competent, that she could handle anything Miranda could throw at her (even if she needed help once or twice). It could be said that, in giving him this line, the film is offering too simplistic a choice between workers in the fashion industry who starve themselves to get unrealistic, dangerously thin figures and so are 'bad', and 'normal' near-slobs (we never see the boyfriend in anything approaching a stylish getup, that I can recall) who are 'good'.
But for all its imperfections this is worth seeing, and maybe a little more realistic than Ugly Betty.