The Devil Wears Prada 2 - Review

Rating: 2 out of 5

THERE are a couple of points during The Devil Wears Prada 2 where Anne Hathaway’s leading protagonist Andy Sachs points towards something and laments that it’s indicative of “everything that’s wrong with the world right now”. She might just as easily have been pointing at the film itself.

As a belated sequel to the 2006 fan favourite, this glossy follow-up promises more of the same while offering some supposedly biting commentary on the current state of play around big business, fashion and journalism.

But where the original had some bite to augment its satirical edge, this one feels vacuous by comparison, while lacking the courage of its convictions.

Early on, for example, Sachs and her current journalist team are sacked via text while attending an awards ceremony. It prompts some musings on the current state of investigative journalism against the rising tide of influencer-led content and five second scrolls [not to mention right wing media agendas and misinformation].

But while the platform is certainly laid for saying something relevant and halfway serious, the course of events that follow find Sachs quickly finding alternative work (back at fashion mag Runway, home to Meryl Streep’s still unscrupulous Miranda Priestly), moving into a plush, newly renovated and highly sought after New York apartment and starting to date its chief architect. It’s not exactly the position that countless out of work journalists find themselves in.

Sachs even comments (briefly) on the unfair nature of the NY property situation, hinting at the rapidly widening divide between rich and poor, but decides all too quickly to embrace her own hypocrisy by moving into the same apartment she has previously lamented for existing.

Thereafter, there are potshots at the absurd cost of clothing and handbags alongside simultaneous fawning over such items; while a belated scene at a Milanese church, in which characters debate Da Vinci’s painting of The Last Supper (chosen, allegedly, to stand out because of the lack of a halo around Jesus, thereby making everyone normal), is then revisited by Sachs to make her own point about normality (albeit her normality being placed among the NY fashionista elite, which would fly in the face of the type of humility inherent in Christian teaching). It all feels very Trumpian.

Plus, for a film that allegedly decries excess, there’s a whole host of cameos from top fashion royalty to suggest otherwise.

And then there’s the endless back stabbing, betrayals and power plays from characters we’re supposed to enjoy - all nicely played by the various cast members; but should we really be supporting any of these self-serving power grabbers? Isn’t that, perhaps, another example of everything that’s wrong with the world - the adulation that surrounds those who prop up the capitalist agenda?

To be fair, the film does deliver a couple of genuine insights. Justin Theroux’s Jeff Bezos wannabe perhaps drops the film’s most telling line when he attempts to extol the virtues of embracing change, adding: “The future just comes rushing at us like... well, like the lava of Pompeii. Our job is just to let it take what it wants to take. One day it's going to come and it's going to smother us all.”

And therein lies the biggest takeaway, delivered by the film’s pantomime villain… we’re all ultimately doomed to be swept away by the indefatigable pursuit of change and profit.

Perhaps I’m reading too much into a sequel that largely exists just to entertain. For taken on that level, the sequel arguably delivers what you (or more importantly fans) would probably expect.

It’s glamorous, glitzy and loaded with wealth porn (locations extend to Milan and The Hamptons). Streep is typically excellent, albeit a little less cold this time around (she now has a PR team around her to advise against the use of certain language and labelling). But she has a good read of her character and why even scandals and exposes have benefits to prolonging her stay at the top.

Hathaway is arguably the least interesting of the central characters and does nothing really to elevate her, but Emily Blunt is great as Miranda’s former top assistant Emily, who is now the head of Dior, and continues to deliver her acerbic lines with relish.

And Stanley Tucci once again provides effortless charisma as Miranda’s long-suffering assistant Nigel - again, delivering his put downs with zest.

But while the returning characters are well served, the newbies aren’t so much. Kenneth Branagh is entirely wasted in a thankless role as Miranda’s current husband, as is her new assistant Amari (Simone Ashley). And Patrick Brammall, from TV’s Colin from Accounts, generates no chemistry as Hathaway’s love interest in what proves to be another thankless role.

For a film with so much talent and opportunity, it is disappointing that it doesn’t do a little more. Rather, it squanders its opportunities - lacking in both satirical insight or brutal comic edge.

Beneath its glamorous, high end facade, The Devil Wears Prada 2 actually feels more like a case of the emperor’s new clothes.

Certificate: 12A

Running time: 2hrs 1min