Two movies for the price of one

Rating: 7/10 (6 April 2009)

There are two movies here: one is a terribly vapid, insipid, shallow, hokey, schlocky (you get the impression) small-town-girl-in-the-big-city flick that will appeal mostly to small-town girls and their sympathizers. I couldn't make up my mind which was the schlockiest bit, when Anne Hathaway, the girl who holds the Guiness world record for biggest lips and eyes and who makes anorexic nymphs look ungainly, has to play the fat, unstylish, ugly duckling, or when she has fake moral qualms about telling her colleague that she will supplant her on a dream trip to Paris. I was writhing on the floor in agony and shaking my fist towards the sky at so much cinematic glucose. And, of course, in the end our ingénue gains everyone's respect including that of her demon boss, and does the right thing by writing stirring stuff about servants on strike for a newspaper where everything and everybody has a greyish hue of brown (viz, the real world). And her boyfriend's a cook (Jamie Oliver's influence becomes palpable here) who makes her grilled cheese sandwiches with "five dollars' worth of Jarlsberg" in them. Retch!
Luckily there is also the other movie, one that features The Streepster as the fashion editor which makes the devil on his throne with his troop of succubi and incubi dancing around him look meek; Stanley Tucci as the extravagant fashion expert; and most of all Emily Blunt as our lead's super-sarcastic colleague (the one who doesn't get to go to Paris). Emily Blunt is a real discovery and pretty much makes this movie. I'm surprised that she hasn't been in every movie that was ever made since then. On that level the movie is really well-made and fun. All you have to do is to tune out of the scenes that don't feature the aforementioned three actors, and you'll be sound as a pound.