Much better than I had been led to believe

Rating: 9/10 (5 March 2007)

I had been told that Merryl Streep is great in this movie but the movie isn't really very good, so I went in with very low expectations. Maybe that was good: I really liked "The Devil Wears Prada" a lot.
Maybe I liked it because of two things I had in common with Andy: first, I have had the experience of starting a new job with only the vaguest idea of what I was supposed to do (and how to do it) and finding that everyone expected me to perform competently, without any training or help, right away. Second, I have had a boss (female) who was so difficult to please and so willing to tell her underlings how stupid they were that several quit without even waiting until they could find other jobs. In other words, I could really relate to Andy's situation. Stuff like that actually does happen in the real world. Perhaps, that is the reason that I was possibly the only person in the theater who was hoping Andy would not make the choice she made.
One thing that Miranda Priestley (Merryl Streep) had going that my Boss From Hell did not was class. It would have been very easy to create Miranda as a monster, but, wisely and skillfully, Merryl Streep allowed her to have a dignity and intelligence that made her seem to be demanding but not sadistic.
Stanley Tucci is superb as Nigel, the ambitious, hard working man who dreams of having a position of power like Miranda's some day.
"The Devil Wears Prada" is a very funny movie that is not as far divorced from the real world as, I believe, the producers of this movie may have thought.