Good character-driven movie ...

Rating: Null/10 (27 July 2007)

I must admit, it took watching the beginning of this movie 3 times before I got interested enough to follow through to the end. Once I finally realized it was not really a comedy, the movie started to work for me.
Generally stated, the story is about a recent college grad who lands a job as assistant to the head of a top fashion magazine. The funny things is, this isn't her field and her values are at odds with everything about her new job.
If you think the plot sounds familiar, it is - it's been done a million times. Plus - the characters are fairly simplistic and one-dimensional.
So what's so good about the movie? First, the performances for each of the characters are near perfect. They become very "watchable" - you want to see what they are going to do next and what's going to happen to them.
The second thing that really intrigued me were the bits of information about the fashion industry - they were very nicely integrated into exchanges between the characters. If anything, you'll get a feel for how ego, tension and subjectivity can play out in a fashion magazine.
As long as you know that this is really a drama (or black comedy without much comedy), you can enjoy this movie from the start.