Snow Queen Meryl thrillingly chilling

Rating: 10/10 (25 September 2006)

What's hot is cold, and what's cold is hot in this brilliant fashion show of a movie - with Meryl Streep in the center acting up a blizzard. Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway) applies for a job at Runway magazine, a job that "a million girls would kill for." By a stroke of good fortune, she gets the job immediately and is thrown into a career where "the details of your incompetence" do not interest the nightmare of a boss known as Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep). Little does she know that is just the tip of the iceberg in the world of cutting-edge fashion.
Rail-thin underlings stalk the hallways in sleek high heels and pencil skirts, avoiding at all costs the woman known as Dragonlady and Snow Queen. Meryl Streep is stunning in this movie (no surprise there), and I was completely overwhelmed as this was my first viewing of one of her performances. Hathaway is charming and cute (and a little naive) as Andy Sachs - she was well cast.
I believe a scene I will never forget is when Miranda, Andy, and Emily (Emily Blunt) are at a soirée in New York, and it had been Emily's and Andy's job to memorize all the names of the prominent people of society and politicians - so that Miranda wouldn't have to. Andy shows Miranda how good she is by calmly whispering the name of a politician into her ear as Emily is about ready to explode with the task of trying to remember that information. The tension builds and builds dramatically, the politician gets closer and closer to Miranda, Emily is struggling for breath, and at the last moment Andy just quietly steps in and rattles off the name. (That scene is also memorable, I might add, because Miranda is stunningly beautiful in a flowing, black, elegant, strapless gown, and I have never seen a woman over fifty-five look that alluring.)
This movie is definitely a chick-flick, but the biting wit of Stanley Tucci would make anyone laugh until it hurt. It is without a doubt, the movie of the year.