Satan In Stiletto Heels

Rating: 8/10 (6 October 2006)

There's a lot to like in this film not least the gloriously anti-PC stance; in a world where employers live in fear of firing a female employee who is clearly nine and a half months pregnant it's refreshing to see an employer who thinks nothing of TELLING rather than asking her Assistant to obtain a copy of the new UNPUNLISHED Harry Potter novel by four pm or not to bother coming back to work (and the 'work' is on a Fashion magazine, the Potter book is for the boss's kids)and when, against all the odds the Assistant places the book on her desk at the allotted time the boss merely says 'ONE copy? but I have twins, do you expect them to cut it in half? Only to be assured by the Assistant that she has had two FURTHER copies bound and delivered to the twins in question. Perhaps the best thing about Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) is the way she is able to intimidate any and everyone by NOT chewing the scenery a la Crawford and Davis but merely employing a look of disdain or at best a low, well modulated voice. Bitchy one-liners abound and we think immediately of Mank's All About Eve and A Letter To Three Wives and for George Sanders in the former we have Stanley Tucci here who, as horrified as everyone else by the total lack of fashion-sense displayed by Andrea (Ann Hathaway) offers her a pair of stylish shoes to replace her own drab one-step-up-from-trainers and when she rejects them by saying 'Miranda hired me and she knows what I look like' his response is 'But do YOU'. The fourth stand-out performance comes from Emily Blunt as Hathaway's predecessor who can't believe people like Andrea exist but nevertheless helps her get a handle on the job. Ironically this hymn to sophistication opened in London on the same day as Marty Scorcese's (who wouldn't know sophistication if it bit him in the ass) in-yer-face The Departed; two movies, two Hollywoods, two different worlds. Unlike most of the Hollywood stuff I've seen and enjoyed recently - Sideways, The Station Agent, Garden State - I have a feeling that this entry WILL hold up on a second viewing.