I finally got around to seeing THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA 2 yesterday. It has a script that could sink any ship and direction that never rises above pedestrian but I did like it more than my friends did. It has Meryl Streep and Emily Blunt, who wear fabulous clothes and make every joke work, and I did laugh quite a bit. The mystery in all of this is Anne Hathaway. It’s her vehicle. Like everyone else I fell in love with her in The Princess Diaries (2001). So she’s been an above-the-title star for over a quarter of a century now, with four films coming out this year; and I hope she’s more interesting in them then she is in this one. She is very beautiful of course; she’s very good – she’s always emotionally legible; and she’s got the most thankless part in the film. But even so, she could have brought more zing, a wink or two, some passion. I’d say her earnestness kills her, except of course, here she is, 25 years later, in her own starring vehicle, keeping the thing together while Streep and Blunt buzz, sparkle, and sting around her.

The original Devil Wears Prada ignited Streep’s career as a popular box-office star after an already long career as the prestige star/actress of her generation, admired and awarded but rarely loved until then. The 2006 film is also what brought Emily Blunt to everyone’s attention. Both are delicious here, salty and unafraid. I didn’t mind Stanley Tucci now as much as I did then, when he seemed to have cornered the market with a particularly narrow conception of ‘gayness’, though I did note all the protagonists in this film are given partners and a sex life except him, and it does somehow seem particularly egregious that a film whose filmmakers know is aimed to a considerable extent at a gay audience should think so narrowly and so little of it. But then this is a film about fashion – Streep memorable noted that the clothes in this film are like expensive special effects in Marvel movies – but so badly directed and edited, that it packs it with events and personalities in the fashion world (Law Roch, Donatella, Dolce and Gabbana) yet rarely allows the audience to register who they are. And yet….after all that, there is Streep, Blunt, the clothes, a few good one-liners. There are worst ways to spend an afternoon.

José Arroyo