OK, I read this book and kind of loathed it; I know its not meant to be War and Peace; its a light book - but seriously I really hated it when I read it. Andy, the main character, was completely arrogant and snotty – ironic since that was her #1 complaint of those in the high fashion magazine office, Runway, she works in for a year as the 2nd assistant/slave to the magazine’s Head Fashionista, Miranda Priestley. And what could have been Andy’s saving grace in the book, her sarcastic wit, saves absolutely nothing. I just kept thinking after every bland and obvious satiric comment she made, “I could have written this shit…I’m funnier than she is!”
And I am not funny.
So all that said – what compelled me to pay $10 (OK, $15…Junior Mints, etc) to see this crap on film?? Well the trailer killed me – Meryl Streep was just too good to pass up! I was hoping she could carry this film (God knows Anne Hathaway can’t) and luckily I was right. Streep is phenomenal as Anna Wintour/Miranda Priestley, the evil evil bitch of a boss who seems to live to simply humiliate the Little People who work for her, worship her, and want to be her…all except Andy of course, the sweet ingénue from the Ivy League, who is strapping on her Penny Loafers and hitting the streets of NYC looking for her first big job out of college. Andy, of course, has never even heard of Miranda Priestly (sigh!) – but after impressing her would-be boss in her interview by being “smart and fat”, Miranda hires Andy to be her new assistant…and this is when the swimming-with-the-sharks fun begins…
The plot is as thin as the models who walk the halls of Runway (seriously – Gisele has a teeny role as a Runway employee), but Streep is great, and her first assistant Emily (played by Emily Blunt) and Stanley Tucci both have great one liners too which had me laughing my ass off a few times…basically if you’re the kind of girl who likes US Weekly and Pink is the New Blog (ahem) you will like this just-for-the-fun-of-it-film.
The Devil Wears Prada is playing now.
