Better than Expected

Rating: 7/10 (15 June 2006)

I got a chance to see a sneak preview, and it was better than expected. First, I have to say that I've never read the book. My friend who saw it with me read it, and she said that the movie was pretty faithful to the book.
The movie stars Anne Hathaway, a writer who winds up applying for, and getting the second assistant position to the Editor-in-Chief of THE fashion magazine called "Runway." Her boss is played by the always fantastic Meryl Streep. While she gets less screen time in the movie, her mean looks and bitchy attitude makes her character stick with you. Also, the movie does give you some soft moments to make her a little more sympathetic than she was portrayed in the novel (or so my friend told me). I do wonder whether or not this movie would've worked if Meryl's character was male instead of female.
I won't bore you with the other plot details because it was actually fun to not know how it unravels. Without the novel to go by, it was fun to figure out what bad thing was going to happen to her next. I do have to say that the movie has achieved the balance of being cute but not corny. You also get to understand why she just takes it all instead of just quitting to begin with. It's funny enough to make you laugh out loud, but more importantly, it's a great film to escape to. Hey, at least for the majority of us, we can come out of the theater and say, "At least my boss isn't like that."