Just this once, I will have to agree with Trump. The mighty Meryl Streep does feel overrated, this time. She is not to be blamed, not entirely… no, no, not her fault. The writing is so vapid and unfocussed, so eager to please (and not show it) it almost feels like an apology rather than a sequel.
As is evident, I came away deeply disappointed from The Devil Wears Prada 2. The characters make all the right moves in their seductive couture…But there is nothing even remotely seductive about the people who populate this rasping sequel, posing as chic. But coming off finally as a shriek.
Some of the beloved characters from the first film still have a cutting edge. The ever-dependable Stanley Tucci (he basically plays what he is: dependable) and Emily Blunt as the former ‘Miranda’ Meryl minion, struggling to find her metier but falling flat on her face (sigh, it’s a long story)… are still entertaining when they are allowed to be.
For most of the playing time, this is a script in search of a script. The narrative ramp-walks confidently, like a little girl hopping and skipping unbeknowest of the pothole that awaits her. The Devil Wears Prada 2 doesn’t negotiate the potholes. It jumps into the trenches missing the bullets for safety, but also missing the ravishing risks of war for the comfort of the safety zone.
I don’t know what the glowing reviews have seen in this hideously smug and overconfident sequel. I haven’t seen any of it. There is no drama, no conflict, no takeaway lines, not one surprise except Lady Gaga, who is given to do what we already know. Hate Miranda.
Even the symbiotic association between Miranda Priestly (Streep) and Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway) feels hacked into. No doubt Hathaway is a very beautiful woman. But her repertoire of expressions shows no augmentation since the first Prada. She dresses better, but we miss the sweater. It is as if time has stood still for her… and not necessarily in a good way.
Making things worse for Hathaway’s Andie is her frigid relationship with a real-estate dealer (Patrick Brammall) whom she bumps into while house hunting, probably because there is no furniture in the apartment (much like the film: a swanky pad with no furniture). Why are they even together? Where is her boyfriend from the first film? Has she dumped him, much in the same way that this sequel has dumped its devilish charm?
Where are the relevant relationships in this florid but fatuous sequel? Does anyone even care? The director David Frankel is like the party crasher, pretending to be poised and confident when he really isn’t. When the narration is not busy selling designer labels to the already sold, it is hurriedly doing dollops of over-explanation in a film that can’t even justify its own existence.
When Tucci’s Nigel lends Andy a high-end dress for a part, he stresses there should be no stain.
The next thing that happens: you got it! What I don’t get is why this silly sequel needed to be made? It does disservice to all the characters, and to us, who loved them but now couldn’t care less. As Miranda would say frostily, “That would be all.”
