Hathaway and the audience deserves better

Rating: Null/10 (13 October 2006)

I'm not a chick flick guy. That may seem like an odd statement, considering they are called chick flicks for a reason, but there are some guys that actually find something to enjoy in the endless reign of female oriented films starring Kate Hudson, Julia Roberts, or the new queen of the genre, Anne Hathaway. With two Princess Diary movies under belt, Hathaway continues her foray into the world of chick film with this adaptation of the best-selling novel by Lauren Weisberger. Hathaway plays Andrea "Andy" Sachs, a wannabe journalist who gets a job working as second assistant to Runway fashion magazine's editor Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep). Priestly is the stereotypical mean and nasty boss seen in just about every film made in the past two decades about working. However, Devil Wears Prada is too light hearted to really dive into Priestly's black heart and instead of dark humor to capture Andy's pain working for her, director David Frankel chooses to settle for lame put downs, such as insulting the way Andy dresses. Maybe there's humor to be found in that for women, but it's hard to imagine any guy finding the jokes here humorous. When jokes aren't failing left and right, the filmmakers throw montage after montage at the audience rather than focusing on character development and telling an interesting story. All this makes 'Prada' impossible rubble to sit through with no fun or wit in sight. Worse, the performances are generally annoying and/or dry. Hathaway, a great actress who has been in more bad films than any actress in recent memory, is given little to do but sound whiny and self-centered. Hathaway and the audience deserve better. 1/10