Tag Archives: Anne Hathaway

THE ODYSSEY at Cineworld.

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Mike and Jen, who I saw it with, responded differently, and to different degrees. They certainly didn’t like it as much as I. Online, one already sees backlashes to the good reviews it’s been getting, the absurd positions attention-seekers often deploy (‘Nolan is the worst director in history!’), well-meaning but half-baked political positionalities (boycott the film because part of it was filmed in Morocco occupied Western Sahara). I found it beautiful, entertaining, a successful attempt to make one of those ancient rune-y texts people go to to seek answers newly relevant (about marriage, father-son relationships, duties and responsibilities, home and exile, the individual vs the community, drugs and trauma, ptsd and the rule of law, etc), and inclusive. The MAGA twits are already in a snit over the casting of Lupita Nyong’o as Helen. There’s been less mention of the wonderful uses of Elliot Page as Sinon. I loved seeing Samantha Morton, Robert Pattinson, magical movie goddesses like Charleze Theron and Zendaya play legendary magical beings, John Leguizamo, and I think Matt Damo is superb. I’m not sure Tom Holland succeeds in conveying that move from callow youth to someone ready to be King, but that and some of the action sequences, particularly the ending one, would be my main quibbles. It’s a film to see on a big screen. I’m booked at the London IMAX. I also want to see it on 35mm at the Warwick Arts Centre. Podcast will follow.

José Arroyo

The Devil Wears Prada 2 (David Franel, 2026)

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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