Underdog films are fun because they're relatable for almost everyone. The vast majority of us, after all, will always face an uphill struggle. The first Devil Wears Prada, while not a great film, was an amiable bit of fun because we could relate to the fish-out-of-water scenario where Andy (Anne Hathaway) tried navigating her way through the smug, vain world of high fashion.
In The Devil Wears Prada 2, Andy is no longer an underdog. She's a wealthy elite, though she pretends otherwise, and her journey is merely from one ivory tower to the next. What's worse, the sequel seems fully unaware of this scenario and spends most of its time acting as if Andy's troubles are somehow relatable because she once bought a designer dress at a thrift shop.
The first film came out 20 years ago, and it goes without saying that the world was a very different place then. Today, after multiple recessions, including the current one, the growing tide of fascism, and the destruction of newspapers around the globe, it's a lot harder to treat the fantasy that The Devil Wears Prada sells as light and bubbly. It arrives with the same gracefulness as The Secret Confessions of a Shopaholic, which was released smack in the middle of the housing market collapse in 2009.
The plot is effectively the same as in the first film, only far more cynical. Andy is fired from her high-paying job at a "real newspaper", only to be hired immediately back at Runway, where she worked as an assistant twenty years prior. She's meant to restore credibility to a failing fashion magazine, which struggles to maintain its image after an incident involving a fast-fashion brand that owns sweatshops – as if something as minor as sweatshop labor would even remotely dent an image today.
Miranda (Meryl Streep) pretends not to remember her, Nigel (Stanley Tucci) dotes upon Andy like a surrogate father, and Emily (Emily Blunt) works as head of retail while seething with resentment towards Miranda. Everyone falls in line with their former personas within minutes. Nobody ever changes; they only get wealthier.
Andy's main goal is to save Runway, a multi-million dollar corporation that sells body image issues. We're supposed to cheer at the thought that if Andy works hard, Miranda will become an even higher-level CEO. Perhaps one day they will have offices next door to each other, overlooking the Manhattan skyline.
You know, relatable things that every journalist trying to make ends meet in a hostile industry struggles with. At least Andy offers one of her old co-workers a job freelancing for Runway.
In one of the most tone-deaf moments of a tin-eared film, Andy loudly complains how she can't lose her extremely lucrative new position (which she was given on a silver platter and caused another, unseen person to lose their job), because it would mean she couldn't afford the new luxury apartment she just bought. Her old one, a massive place in an expensive brownstone in Manhattan, was clearly beneath her, as the pipes were old.
Luckily, her new boyfriend flips old apartments for a living and sells entire towers to wealthy investors. But it's OK, the film says. If not him, someone else would.
This kind of scenario repeats often, and The Devil Wears Prada pretends like it somehow makes Andy relatable. At times, I considered that perhaps it's just poorly told satire, but director David Frankel can't help but lean into sickly sentimentalism at every turn, which robs the film of any wit it could muster.
On top of that, The Devil Wears Prada is a mean-spirited and spiteful film that more than once resorts to jokes at the expense of people's looks. In one scene, Miranda is subjected to the ultimate humiliation: She has to travel to a fashion show in Italy in coach! Frankel revels in staging an opulently dressed Streep next to an overweight passenger eating a ridiculously drenched sandwich. We're meant to laugh at Streep's disgust, but also at the sight itself.
Elsewhere, another large character explains how they're not allowed to leave their chair at the office for any reason. When they try to point out how they just ate, they're met with a mocking response, "Well, was it worth it?"
This doesn't stop The Devil Wears Prada from smugly staging a Lady Gaga musical interlude where Gaga sings a celebratory song about women's bodies. The ones that fit the image these magazines sell, naturally.
Like Sex and the City or Entourage, The Devil Wears Prada 2 isn't interested in subtext. This is the cinematic equivalent of jangling keys in front of an infant; only here it's a thousand-dollar designer handbag.
The Devil Wears Prada 2 doesn't care that it's hypocritical, or that, without irony, its solution to all problems is just buying more money. We're meant to gush at the mere privilege to spend time with these characters again. When Hathaway fawns that Emily (Emily Blunt) is iconic, it's like being in the audience at the finals of the backpatting Olympics.
The Devil Wears Prada is head over heels in love with itself and the ugly corporate fetishism it sells. It squeals as it fondles a dress that costs more than multiple months of rent, and that would be fine if the film didn't also try to paint itself as some virtuous statement about the importance of journalism.
A smarter, more thoughtful satire could skewer the hypocrisy with relish; a better-directed film would at least be fun to look at. But The Devil Wears Prada 2 is an advertisement for a lifestyle none of its viewers will ever have. It is flat and lifeless, and it looks like a streaming movie that escaped containment.
It gums at the hand that feeds it with performative energy for a fleeting second before descending into its infernal, repugnant celebration of materialism, as an incessant pop soundtrack drowns out the howls of the audience that has spent a weekly paycheck to watch two hours of ads.
